There are plenty of athletes who have played games with broken noses and broken bones in the face. Many remember basketball player Rick Hamilton who wore a mask, and Kobe Bryant did the same as both protected broken bones, and then there was quarterback Ben Roethlisberger who broke his nose in the game and kept playing. As far as a baseball player breaking his nose, and playing the next game — we give you Max Scherzer who is scheduled to pitch tonight after breaking his nose yesterday while participating in a bunting drill in batting practice. Scherzer is one-of-a-kind, and we will see how this goes. Scherzer easily could have opted-out of the game or even taken a 10-day IL stint.
“Other than his eye, he’s good. Two thumbs up,” manager Dave Martinez said about Scherzer starting tonight’s game. “He has a nice shiner. … It’s his turn in the rotation.”
With the rain-outs, Scherzer was supposed to pitch today with Erick Fedde pitching yesterday, and the Nationals will skip Fedde for now in the rotation, but the team will need an extra starter for either Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday, and it could possibly be Joe Ross filling in on Saturday or Sunday with some combination of Fedde, Stephen Strasburg, and Anibal Sanchez available for three of those starts in the next four days.
The Phillies will go with the struggling Jake Arrieta tonight, and we will see how both managers fill-out their line-up cards. There is still a chance of rain, and there are certainly no guarantees as these teams had to wait-out two consecutive rain-outs from Monday and Tuesday which has caused this predicament.
With this afternoon’s win in the first game of this doubleheader, both teams are resting up for what is already long day.
Philadelphia Phillies at Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 7:05 pm EDT
TV: MASN, NBC Sports Philadelphia, MLB.TV
Nats Radio: 106.7 FM The Fan; SiriusXM® ( Streaming Internet 869)
Line-up subject to change (without notice):
