Rendon's elbow still "a little sore," bullpen ready for long run

Nationals manager Davey Martinez elected to give veteran Howie Kendrick the start in today's second game of three against the Padres. Anthony Rendon was hit by a pitch in his elbow last weekend in Miami and then last night got hit in his left quad with another pitch, so the third baseman is not in the starting lineup.

"Yeah, I talked to him after the game," Martinez said. "He was a little sore. So, I like to have him available to pinch-hit late in the game."

Martinez confirmed it was Rendon's elbow that was still sore and not his quad. But the skipper is not concerned for Rendon's long-term health.

"Not really, I kind of figured after not playing for five or six days and all of a sudden playing (he needed more rest)," Martinez said. "He got smoked. I figured he'd be a little sore."

* The Nats are in the midst of 16 consecutive days with games to be played. Their next day off is May 13 after their long road trip through Philadelphia, Milwaukee and Los Angeles.

What kind of challenge does that present to the bullpen, which has not been as consistent as the club would have hoped to begin this season?

"Right now everybody has got to be available, obviously," Martinez said. "We just got be cautious of everybody's usage. The good thing is our starting pitching has been going pretty deep in games. So, we can manage it that way. We got to keep an eye on how we use those guys.

"So far it's been pretty good. I looked at all the numbers around the league, and our bullpen usage hasn't really been bad. I know these guys. I talk to these guys daily and they'll tell me when they're not feeling up to par. We'll just have to keep an eye on them."

* Interesting to see the Padres with three left-handed starters and all three pitching in this series, with Eric Lauer today and Joey Lucchesi Sunday. Southpaw Matt Strahm fanned a career-high eight batters in the series lid-lifter for San Diego Friday night, a 4-3 Friars win.

"You don't see it too often but we got some pretty good right-handed hitters, and we got a left-handed hitter that doesn't seem to be bothered by a left-handed pitcher," Martinez said.

Juan Soto singled and scored a run in the fourth inning against Strahm Friday night. Although he is hitting just .241 so far this season, Soto did well in his splits last season against southpaws, hitting .279 with seven homers and 22 RBIs. He is batting .192 this season so far against lefties with one homer and five RBIs.

* Martinez was happy to see Strasburg have a bounce back performance last week in Miami and is hoping he can repeat that again today.

"He kept the ball down," Martinez said. "For me that's huge for him. Everything was down. He used his changeup, slider effectively. But for the most part he kept everything down."