The SPRING BREAKOUT game is on Friday, and today we will get a sneak peak at several of the Washington Nationals’ top prospects starting in today’s Grapefruit League game against a legit MLB pitcher, Eury Perez, in Jupiter, Florida today.
For manager Dave Martinez, he has penciled in top prospects Jacob Young, James Wood, Trey Lipscomb, and Dylan Crews into his starting lineup today. Just insert CJ Abrams, Lane Thomas, and Brady House, and this could look a lot like what some hope to be a 2025 regular lineup.
The team revealed the MRI results on Robert Hassell III. The news was good, all things considered, that it was a groin strain (no Grade of strain disclosed), and not the dreaded sports hernia. Hassell will be day-to-day, but Martinez revealed he wouldn’t be back in game action any time soon. He is able to play catch and hit off of a tee. Hassell was pulled just a half inning into Friday’s game per what we hoped at the time was a mistake in the boxscore. It wasn’t a mistake as we found out after sending out inquiries, and a fan at the game responded to our Tweet that Hassell was playing right field and ran towards center field on a fly ball and looked like he injured his leg, and was removed from the game.
For Hassell, he was having a great Spring Training until his injury. Slashing .357/.412/.786 with a gaudy 1.198 OPS, the Nats’ outfielder was certainly proving the doubters wrong after he was dealing with wrist weakness last season after a hamate surgery and subsequent wrist injury zapped most of his power in 2023. Hassell endured a whole lot of negativity on his social media and responded to them during the postseason. The best way to shut-up the haters is to prove them wrong — the best form of vindication.
While Hassell will return at some point soon, he will miss Friday’s SPRING BREAKOUT game. We will see if he is well enough to play in the March 26th Varsity/JV game at Nationals Park. The good news is we will see some of the Nats’ top prospects who are closest to making their MLB debuts.
This is a radio-only game (The Team 980 in the D.C. area) against the Marlins, and we will hope that they have their fixed video camera send out live views of the game on Marlins.com. First pitch is 1:10 PM EDT, and Jake Irvin is on the mound for the Nats in his fourth start. Expect Irvin to try reach 70+ pitches today.
