Span to see back specialist, rules himself out of O's series (game postponed)

Nationals center fielder Denard Span is scheduled to see a back specialist on Thursday as the Nationals try to figure out why his back spasms continue to occur.

"I haven't done much. I've been instructed to kind of take it easy," Span said Wednesday afternoon. "That's where we are."

Span ruled himself out of the Orioles series.

"No chance," Span answered when asked about playing in Baltimore over the weekend.

Manager Matt Williams said the Nationals are in a holding pattern until the specialist can examine Span and conduct an MRI of his back.

"We want to find the root," Williams said. "Everything is predicated on that root. It's a perplexing one because it's four or five days he's great and then it crops up again. We'll get him to see the specialist and talk about it. He can read an MRI and say it's 'X,' but until he gets a chance to see him physically and examine him, he won't be able to give us that information anyway. Hopefully, at some point tomorrow, we'll have a better answer on it."

Span said the doctors he has talked to believe the problem is related to his recovery from the core muscle surgery in the offseason and the strength of his abdominal region.

"They think it's stemming from that," Span said. "It's just everything. Having those surgeries, not having an offseason to get my body strong. My body has been behind the eight ball, and trying to play at a high level that I'm accustomed to, I've put a lot of stress on body parts that I normally wouldn't put stress on if I were in good condition. I have to take a step back and figure out what's going and try to play catch up, basically."

Williams said the Nationals have tried to give Span rest during the season as a way to ease him back to full duty. But Span's back has seized up on him a couple of times now.

"We've been trying to give him some days off even though he was feeling OK," Williams said. "That hasn't quite done the trick. We'll get another answer and see where we can go from there."

"Definitely not helping the team by doing what I've been doing for the last three or four weeks," Span said. "Missing games here and there, (then) playing four games. Definitely been putting the team in a bad spot."

The irony for Span is that his situation is similar to Stephen Strasburg right before he hurt his oblique. Strasburg's teammates had commented how good Strasburg had been right up to when the injury occurred. Span had a similar experience. He has been feeling his baseball play has improved over the last couple of weeks.

"I have been feeling pretty good," Span said. "Been active on the bases, stealing bases. That is why I kept playing, because even though my back was locking up on me, a couple days after that my body felt brand new. So I thought that everything was OK, but this has happened too frequently, so I got to figure out what's going on."

Update: The start of tonight's game will be delayed due to inclement weather. No start time has been announced yet.

Update II: Reds-Nats has been postponed. No makeup date has been announced yet.