JUPITER, Fla. — Washington Nationals’ right-hander Christian Garcia will see a specialist in the Baltimore-Washington area on Sunday to get what he hopes will be the final clearance for him to resume baseball activities after missing roughly five weeks with a partially torn tendon in his right wrist.
Garcia has been pain free for several days now and he is confident that when he resumes throwing, the pain he felt on fastballs during the pitcher’s workouts will be gone.
Unfortunately for the talented right-hander, his chances of making the Nationals out of camp are now non-existent.
“No possibility,” manager Davey Johnson said Friday when asked if there was still an opportunity for Garcia to make the bullpen.
“He’s a valuable commodity and we’re just going to go at a regular pace and get him ready for whenever he’s ready.”
The Nationals are still planning to stretch Garcia out in the hopes that he will be able to use his impressive arsenal of pitches as starting pitching depth for them. But short of that, they also feel he can be a dominant major league reliever.
For now, though, their focus is on getting him healthy.
“We’ll probably keep him here (in Florida) once he starts throwing and see where he’s at,” Johnson said. “He’ll be playing catch everyday and he’s been out for over a month, so it’s like starting all over.”
