Williams on Zimmerman, playoff rotation and other notes

Nationals manager Matt Williams is playing four opening day starters in the lineup for Game 1 against the Mets today, including Ryan Zimmerman in left field, who is batting third. Williams reiterated he would continue to sprinkle his starters between both games today and tomorrow. Williams also has a very deep bench in which to choose from and this allows him to give Denard Span a bit more time to rest his banged up knee. "You want to be competitive certainly in both," Williams said. "I wanted Zim to play in the day game because it's generally going to be a little bit warmer. He's a little bit on that schedule anyway. I wanted him to play in the day game, in the sun if we can get some, and a little warmer weather as opposed to getting him out there at night. "The weather is starting to cool down, so I don't want to take any chances with that if we don't have to. And then we looked at matchups, too. Bryce is good. Desi wanted to play in the day game, it's warmer. That's kind of how we went about doing it. We don't know about Spanny, so we'll give him some more time to get everything worked on today and look toward the second game for him." Williams wants to get Zimmerman as many at-bats as he can the in next few days. "I'd like to play him every day," Williams said. "So it'd be one today, one tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday. I'd like to get him in those games. At the same time, we're in position and it's not the ultimate importance for us. "We're in position to secure home-field advantage so we also want to win games. It's important for us to do that, too. But if we're setting up the roster for the postseason, it's important to get Zim in those games and get him going. It's been a little bit of a fluky schedule and it's been him being a little sore. It's important to get the next four in for him." Will he get a chance to play third base during these games? "He's close. If we had to today, he could play third base," Williams said. "He could play first, too. I don't think there would be any issue with it. I want to be cautious though because if had a hiccup right now, that would be not good for him regarding the postseason so we want to get him clear of the season, make sure he's OK and let him go from there. Yeah, he's close." A lot of "late nights" are going into deciding the starting rotation and roster for the postseason, which will begin Oct. 3 at Nationals Park. "The things that factor for me are opponent, who they have, realizing that this all can change from series to series," Williams said. "So we have to look at the first one first and who we're gonna play and how do we match-up against that particular team. We don't know that yet. We might not know that until Sunday. "So what we need to do in the interim is get all the guys in the games, get them sharp as possible, get them at-bats, get them playing time and make the decision when we have to make it. But we simply don't know at this point, because we don't know who we're going to play. Williams slated Doug Fister in one of the starts on Friday, moving Stephen Strasburg to Saturday and Jordan Zimmermann to Sunday. The moves were made to setup the playoff rotation. "We gotta make sure Zim is OK, Jordan, so part of that is giving him some extra days now," Williams said. "But he's going to be one of our pitchers in the postseason, we want him to be good. So we pushed him back a little bit now, give him some extra days. "If he was on his normal rest, then you look to Game 1 and Game 2 of the playoffs and there's a lot of time in between there. We wanted to get it as close to the same as possible for this start and then his first start in the postseason." How do you keep Fister fresh for the postseason? "That's a hard one. We'll look to potentially getting him over - Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday - some competitive pitches," Williams said. "Whether that's a simulated game or something like that, as we get into it. If we can get him out Monday or Tuesday and get him some competitiveness as opposed to just throwing a bullpen, then that would be good. It's not easy, there's so much time off that it's not easy to keep guys sharp. They're not on their normal rest. Again, this time of year it's important for them to have as much rest as possible, as well. We could do it here. We got lots of guys, we could field two teams if we wanted to." Williams also said there might be a chance over the weekend to get Tanner Roark some primetime bullpen work, a responsibility he may be assigned to in the postseason. "Potentially over the weekend," Williams said. "It depends, he's in uncharted territory, too. He had a fantastic season and we wouldn't want to push him too much, but if we can keep him sharp in a competitive bullpen situation, get him an inning on Sunday, that would be great. Who knows how it's all going to shake out anyway. He could potentially be available over the weekend, yeah." Williams said the opponent the Nationals face could also determine Roark's role. "It could depend on the opponent, yeah," Williams said. "It could depend on how the other guys are feeling, too. That's up in the air. I'd imagine that's up in the air for everybody because you just don't know. Where you're at in the course of a series, how are guys doing, do you have some sort of hiccup over the weekend going in? A lot of things depend on how we come out of the regular season." Williams confirmed that call-up Taylor Hill will be scheduled to pitch five innings Friday in one of the doubleheader games. "He's good through five innings. He's been building up to that," Williams said. "He was a starter all year and he's continued to stay sharp as we've gone so post-minor league season, he's been in Instructional League throwing bullpens, throwing games, so he's good through five innings. Pitch count, we don't know. It depends how stressful it is for him and how the ball is coming out of his hand, for sure. I see him going five at least, if we need him to. "It's important today to understand what we can do tomorrow. If we win the games tomorrow, then our work tomorrow will be a little bit different and that's just the way it's gonna have to be. So if we don't, and it's important for us to win those games tomorrow, we may treat it a little differently but we don't know that yet so we have to play Game 1 first and then tonight and get a couple hours and go get them again. It'll change our approach if we're able to win those games today."