Harris on DL, Hernandez activated

By Mark Zuckerman The Washington Times - April 13, 2009, 12:55PM

Good afternoon from Nationals Park, where the crowd is beginning to trickle in, the pink buds on the cherry blossoms are beginning to bloom and the name of today’s ceremonial first pitch thrower remains a mystery. (Stan Kasten said he knows but has been instructed not to reveal it.)

There is roster news to report, but before that some potentially bad news: Harry Kalas, the longtime voice of the Phillies and NFL Films, apparently collapsed in the TV booth here a little while and was taken out on a stretcher. Let’s hope it’s not serious and we get some good news later.

SEE RELATED:

As fot the Nats … as we began to speculate yesterday, Willie Harris was placed on the 15-day DL with a pulled left oblique muscle and Anderson Hernandez was reinstated from the DL sooner than originally planned.

Harris: Even though he’s been told it’s a “minor” strain, these things are tricky and can easily be injured further with one swing or one reach for a groundball in the hole. So the Nats are disabling him, with no set timetable for his return.

Hernandez: The plan was to have him play a couple more games at Syracuse, but with Harris and Ronnie Belliard (still battling a lower back strain) out, the Nats were out of second basemen. So they activated Hernandez after only one rehab game (he went 0-for-4 and played seven innings yesterday).

I asked Hernandez whether his hamstring is 100 percent yet. His repsonse: “I can’t say 100 percent. But I’m good.”

OK, here are your home opener starting lineups…

NATIONALS

CF Lastings Milledge

SS Cristian Guzman

3B Ryan Zimmerman

LF Adam Dunn

RF Elijah Dukes

1B Nick Johnson

C Jesus Flores

2B Anderson Hernandez

P Daniel Cabrera