Washington Nationals news & notes: Joan Adon and leg cramps; Trevor Williams and home runs…

Notes and quotes after an off-day for the nation’s capital’s favorite baseball team…

Adon’s Cramps and the Nationals’ Rotation:

Joan Adon returned to the majors with a bid for a perfect game which he carried through 6 ²⁄₃ innings, only to give up three hits and three runs before he got the third out, but the recently-turned 25-year-old starter told reporters he wasn’t sure how much more he’d had left if the potentially historic outing had actually continued.

“I don’t know what would’ve happened, because in that sixth inning, I started cramping,” Adon said, as quoted on MASNsports.com.

“That’s when I started feeling it. But no one wants to come out of a perfect game.”

Adon exited the second start of his recent run in the majors between the third and fourth innings this past Friday night, when he experienced cramping in his legs once again as he warmed up.

“His legs cramped up on him. Second time,” manager Davey Martinez said in his post game comments following the series opener with Oakland.

“He cramped up in Cincinnati as well. So we got to figure out how to get him — whether it’s drinking more fluids, we don’t know yet. I saw him drink a lot, but both his legs were cramped up.”

Adon felt better 12 or so hours later when Martinez spoke again in advance of the second game of three with the A’s in D.C.

“He said he feels better. We’re going to run some tests on him though, and see why this is happening to him. Whether he’s not getting enough fluids or … I talked to him today. He said he drinks a lot before the game. So we’re going to figure it out before his next start. And hopefully, it’s something that we can control. But today, he said he felt fine. I told him to just take it easy today and we’ll get you going again tomorrow. Because he’s definitely got to get on this routine.”

Martinez, before the start, had said he hoped the cooler weather might help Adon avoid further issues like those he experienced in Cincinnati, but it was an issue for him once again and something the manager said they needed to address.

“He sweats a lot,” the sixth-year skipper said.

“So I think at any point it can happen, whether it’s the second or third inning. You’ve got to remember, it happened in the sixth inning [in Cincinnati], because he was running through the game fairly quickly.

“Yesterday, he had a tough time commanding the strike zone, so it happened in the fourth inning. But like I said, they’re gonna take a look at him. They’re going to run some tests on him and see if we can prevent this from happening anymore.”

Martinez said at that point he hoped he’d be able to send Adon out for his next turn in the recently-expanded six-man rotation.

“If we have to do something different,” he explained, “I think we’ll be covered. But I would like to keep him on schedule. So like I said, we’re going to do some things with him and see if we can get this narrowed down, and that he can go out there and compete.”

A day later, when he spoke before the finale with the Athletics, Martinez was confident Adon would be able to post up on schedule.

“He’s scheduled to pitch, but we’re going to see how he feels over the next couple of days,” Martinez reiterated. “Like I said, we got to kind of control this whole cramping thing. He felt better this morning than he did yesterday.

“So he scheduled to throw a bullpen I think tomorrow and we’ll see how that goes.”

Considering it happened in back-to-back outings, is it a conditioning issue or just a matter of dehydration?

“He’s — they’re going to do some different stretching exercises with him before,” Martinez said. “But he’s wound tight. He’s a very physical guy, but we got to figure what’s going on. He drinks plenty of water. He had some IV put in him the other day, but today, he said he feels better, he’s been eating pretty good, so we’ll see how he feels tomorrow.”

Williams Gives Up 3 More HRs:

Trevor Williams gave up a home run on the second pitch he threw in Wrigley Field late last month, and he joked with reporters afterwards about ways to try to avoid giving up all the first-inning homers in his starts, as he had in seven of 20 outings to that point.

“It’s become an unfortunate trend,” Williams acknowledged, as quoted by MASN’s Mark Zuckerman. “I should just give up one in the bullpen before the game and go from there.

“But it’s part of pitching. You’re going to give up homers. You’re going to give up runs. It’s a matter of getting back up on the mound and executing.”

Williams avoided giving up any first-inning blasts in the three starts which followed, though he gave up home runs in each of the starts, and on Sunday in the nation’s capital, he gave up a one-out homer in the first, then walked a batter before a two-run shot put the Oakland A’s up 3-0 early … before they blew a five-run lead in a six-run ninth in a walk-off win for the home team.

Williams gave up a third home run later in his outing against the Athletics, which left him with an NL-high 28 homers allowed in 117 ²⁄₃ IP so far this season, in the first year of his 2-year/$13M deal with the Nats (2.14 HR/9; the highest mark amongst pitchers with at least 110 IP on the year).

“He’s just been getting the ball up a little bit in the zone,” manager Davey Martinez said of his starter’s struggles keeping the ball in the yard, “… just a couple mistakes. I’ll tell you one thing about Trevor though, when push comes to shove and he needs to bear down and get an out, he typically does get an out. He’s been really good.

“We just got to get him to understand when he throws the ball down he’s very effective. His mistakes up have been getting hit hard, so we just got to talk to him about keeping the ball down.”