Washington Nationals news & notes: Davey Martinez on Ryan Zimmerman; Evan Lee + more…

Highlights from Davey Martinez’s media availability on Saturday…

Mr. National Go 1-0 Today:

This weekend is all about Ryan Zimmerman, so No. 11 is going to make it into the news & notes too. Zimmerman’s number was retired yesterday. Former teammates returned this weekend to celebrate with Washington’s 2005 1st Round pick and his manager talked to reporters before Saturday’s matchup with the Philadelphia Phillies about getting to work with the face of the Nationals’ franchise after taking over on the bench in 2018, and now getting to honor him and celebrate his 16-year career.

“It’s awesome,” Martinez said. “As you know, it’s well-deserved. For me, he’s the face of this franchise, of this organization. Love the guy. I can’t speak highly enough of him. When — last night I was sitting around and I was thinking about Ryan, and when I always say, ‘Go 1-0 every day,’ I mean, he’s the definition of going 1-0 every day and winning his day. He’s that guy.”

“I’m sure after the game we’ll be drinking a lot of Sprites together,” the manager added, “but I’m looking forward to it, it’s a big day for him. Today is all about Ryan Zimmerman.”

Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images

Seeing some old, familiar faces around the ballpark this weekend was fun for everyone in Nationals Park, the manager included.

“For me, they’re here because of one guy, and that’s Zim,” Martinez said. “To see the faces though, that are here, and the faces that played in this organization is pretty impressive, there are some really good players that came through this organization, so to see them all together and just hear them reminiscing and being together, that’s pretty awesome. There were a lot of years that this team was very competitive, and at the end of the day, a lot of the guys weren’t here, but Ryan was here when we ended up finishing the season as champions. But they built this organization as well. They went through the everyday grind. So even though they didn’t reap the rewards at the end, but they should feel proud of themselves, because this organization was built on winning, and they were a big part of that.

“It was good to see those guys, it will be a fun-filled day, there will be a lot of conversations, some may go awry at some point, but it will be a lot of fun.”

Lee To 15-Day IL:

Davey Martinez didn’t like what he saw from lefty Evan Lee as he fired two wild-wild pitches in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader in D.C., so he called for trainer Paul Lessard to come out to the mound with him and after a brief discussion they lifted the 24-year-old left-hander from the game.

The southpaw went for an X-ray right away, and the club decided to get an MRI as well to be sure there was nothing going on with the young pitcher.

“He says he doesn’t really feel anything, but we want to make sure there’s nothing in there,” Martinez said.

“I just want to be very cautious with him. When he misses the strike zone like that, I thought there was something wrong with him, so we’re going to check him out.”

Before Saturday’s game, the Nationals placed Lee on the 15-Day IL with a left flexor strain. It was apparently a good call by the Nats’ skipper to stop the lefty’s outing when he did, even though Lee protested.

“We got the MRI back and it says a mild flexor strain,” Martinez said, “which is about as good news as — he said in a couple weeks he should be fine. So we’ll get that taken care of.

“There’s not much he can do right now, so we’ll get some strengthening done and he’ll be back as soon as possible.”

As he reiterated, the location, and how wild the two pitches Lee threw were was what clued him in to the fact there was an issue.

“I went out there, I got Paul [Lessard], after he threw a couple pitches like that I thought something wasn’t right, so I went out there, talked to [umpire] Scott Barry, and said we just wanted to check him out, and he just didn’t look right, so we wanted to get him out of there.”

Did Lee feel something and try to push through it? Did he say anything about having any sort of issue? Or did Martinez just not like what he saw?

“Just watching him and watching what he’s doing,” told him something was off the fifth-year skipper reiterated.

“I wasn’t — I was trying to figure out what was going on, because he doesn’t miss the strike zone like that.

“When I went out there he was very — like, ‘Nothing is wrong.’ And I said, ‘Well, something has got to be wrong, so we want to get you checked out and I’m glad we did.”