Doolittle continues progression toward return; Suero is back; Romero, Robles updates

Nationals manager Davey Martinez had another promising update on the progress of closer Sean Doolittle's possible return. Doolittle conducted another simulated game prior to the club's matchup with the Cardinals at Nationals Park tonight.

Doolittle has missed 52 games with a toe injury, which works out to 37.4 percent of this season's games.

"Good. He felt a lot better today than he did the previous game and we'll see how he feels tomorrow and hopefully ... It's his call," Martinez said. "The foot feels good, his arm was really good today, so hopefully he'll be back here for the weekend."

With the team on the outside looking in at the postseason as September gets rolling, Martinez said Doolittle wants to come back, so thoughts of a shutdown for the rest of the season have not gotten much momentum.

"He's been actually ... this has been all on him," Martinez said. "He's worked diligently to get back. It's just weird because he feels, every time he does something he feels a little bit better, a little bit better, and then one day, he'll wake up and he's a little sore. So now he is just saying, 'I just want to get on the mound.' That's his doing, he wants to get on the mound, get comfortable again, just make sure he doesn't change his mechanics and go from there."

* As for tonight's bullpen, Martinez said right-hander Wander Suero is available to pitch after missing a couple of days because of soreness in his hand that would not allow him to close his glove.

"He is available. Actually, I played catch with him today," Martinez confirmed.

* Victor Robles is not in the starting lineup. Martinez had said when Robles was initially activated that the Nats would try to get him some starts down the stretch. He did consider putting the youngster in tonight's lineup.

"Yeah, I did. But hey, he'll play a lot these next few days," Martinez said.

General manager Mike Rizzo said the Nats are focusing on the pennant race and he believes Robles will need a few games to get back to the level he was when he was placed on the postseason roster in 2017. Robles missed most of this season recovering from an elbow injury sustained in early April with Triple-A Syracuse.

"We're trying to win baseball games and I think Victor's talent allows us to do that," Rizzo said. "It gives us a chance to win games. It's the ultimate goal at this time of year and any time of year is to win baseball games and I think we're looking for Victor to show improvement, to show he's healthy.

"He missed 3 1/2, four months this season and he's just now starting to get his baseball legs under him and start running out to baseball shape. We thought he had enough at-bats to get him here and hopefully that can help us win some baseball games."

* The club confirmed this week that left-hander Seth Romero underwent Tommy John surgery last week in Los Angeles. The 2017 first-round selection made seven minor league starts this season and accumulated 25 1/3 innings.

"The surgery went well," Rizzo said. "Dr. (Neal) ElAttrache in L.A. did the Tommy John surgery. The surgery went as expected. It was a successful surgery. He's already begun the rehabilitation process. We've done this song and dance before. We're pretty adept at rehabilitations of Tommy John and we expect this to be a successful one.

Rizzo said Romero, 22, was battling elbow problems this season and the Nationals tried to figure out a way to get through it. But in the end, they had to shut him down and go with the surgery.

"He had some elbow issues throughout (the season)," Rizzo said. "The last time he had a start, he really felt it. We got him a second opinion and both opinions really matched. It was best for him to have the Tommy John surgery and start the rehabilitation process."