Off to fast start, Eaton continues building strength in knee

ATLANTA - Nationals left fielder Adam Eaton literally hit the ground running to begin the 2018 season, his first regular season play since April 28 of last year.

That's the night Eaton suffered a serious knee injury that required surgery. He has rehabbed the past 10 months to get back to nearly 100 percent and has displayed the leadoff talent general manager Mike Rizzo envisioned when he made the deal for the sparkplug prior to the 2017 campaign.

Eaton was rewarded for an outstanding first weekend in Cincinnati with the initial National League Player of the Week Award. Eaton's weekend was highlighted by a career-best 5-for-5 performance last Saturday.

"I don't think I was in a zone," Eaton said of the perfect day. "I don't think I was seeing the ball especially well. I'm not saying I got lucky, but I put a lot of work in the cages in the off season and worked some different things. And hopefully it will continue to correlate to that. I put myself in the best position to be successful and hope the best.

"I could have went 4-for-5, really. I could have went 2-for-5 if a guy was playing two steps back and I was another step over. Baseball's funky like that and I'm happy with how it went, but it could've went the other way."

Eaton was thrilled to win the Player of the Week honor, an award he won one time before in the American League in 2015 with the White Sox. The award came with a Rockwell watch that Eaton knows will go to good use in his family. Eaton credited his teammates for the quick start. He had eight hits, two homers and five RBIs in the first series against the Reds.

"It's pretty surreal just to be able to come back and do it," Eaton said. "Sometimes we get watches. I know I have gotten a watch in the past. To be able to have something that physically I can give to my dad to commemorate it, it's even more surreal. It was nice I was able to win the award for three days of work. I'll take it any way I can get it.

"Truly a good weekend, not only for myself, but for the team, too. Can't take away from the team. We had really good starting pitching. We had guys that came out of the bullpen and did their jobs. Really was a full team effort."

Manager Davey Martinez has been impressed with how solid Eaton has been considering only a few months ago he was tooling around the clubhouse on a scooter to nurse his surgically repaired knee.

"He's a special guy," Martinez said. "He brings tons of energy. I love him in the leadoff spot. He creates havoc up there. He works counts. He worked an unbelievable walk (Tuesday). Just having him back, having him in our lineup, he's an important part of our lineup."

But is Eaton holding back because of the injury recovery? Is he being careful to not crash into walls or dive for line drives? Is he taking it easy up the first base line on ground balls?

The answer is an emphatic no.

"I think if you play scared, that's when you get hurt," Eaton said. "I'm in a big league baseball game. There's nothing I'm not going to be able to do. There's no ghost runner. There's no 'You take it, I can't' type deal. You are ready. The lights are on, you got to go do it."

Martinez said Eaton goes full speed down the basepaths.

"We have this thing about smooth 100 (yards) down first base," Martinez noted. "He goes a smooth 150 (yards).

"He's getting to the point now we talk I don't think about it anymore which is great. He's just going out there playing baseball which is good to see. We took him out (Tuesday) so he could play (today). We asked him how he felt and he said he felt great."

Eaton is able to play hard and go all out because he has confidence in the knee thanks to a vigorous rehab schedule. That rehab continues into the regular season led by Nationals director of athletic training Paul Lessard, athletic trainer Greg Barajas, and strength and conditioning coach Matt Eiden, among many others on the staff.

"The staff here was amazing," Eaton said "I could speak literally all day on what we went through and time and hours they put into my body and my mental state. Tremendous group effort. It's awesome. They've done this stuff before. They know my body is going to react certain ways. They'd warn me about this, warn me about that and it would come to fruition. You know exactly what's going on and how it's going to go.

"We wanted it to be a 45-degree angle climb. Sometimes when I wanted to go and do more, they would say, 'We are going to do this, trust us.' I've put my faith in their hands and they didn't disappoint. Hats off to them. I don't know where I'd be without Greg, Paul, all those guys in there. List every one of them because at one point or another, we've had a run in and they helped me out in some way shape or form."

His in-season weight room workouts have not been altered that much, but there is an emphasis on hitting hamstring, quad and stabilization exercises more than usual because of the ACL recovery.

"Therapy is going to continue," Eaton said. "It's going to be a year-long process. It's going to have to continue on. But they're in my corner 110 percent. I can't say enough about them."

Nothing is holding Eaton back now.