Washington Nationals right-hander Will Harris will undergo further evaluation after being diagnosed with a blood clot in his pitching arm.
Nationals manager Dave Martinez said Friday that Harris sensed there was a problem while pitching in a ‘B’ game on Saturday.
“He felt weird his last outing,” Martinez told reporters. “So, we kind of backed off a little bit, got an MRI and in the arm was a little small blood clot.”
The 36-year-old is slated to travel to St. Louis to be examined by specialist Dr. Robert Thompson.
“For me, it’s hard, because medically I don’t know the extent of what that is,” Martinez said. “But I know it’s something that is serious. We need to take care of it — take care of it as soon as possible.”
Harris last pitched in an exhibition game on March 9 when he tossed a scoreless inning against the Houston Astros.
Martinez said that Harris was handling the situation well.
“He’s pretty upbeat considering what’s going on,” Martinez said. “Hopefully we’ll know more sooner than later, and then we can determine what’s going to happen.”
Harris is entering the second season of a three-year, $24 million deal. He was slated to be one of the Nationals’ late-game relievers, along with left-hander Brad Hand and right-hander Daniel Hudson.
Harris was 0-1 with a 3.06 ERA in 20 relief appearances for Washington last season.
He has spent nine previous seasons in the majors with the Colorado Rockies (2012), Arizona Diamondbacks (2013-14), Houston Astros (2015-19) and Nationals.
He was an All-Star for the Astros in 2016 and enjoyed his best all-around season in 2019 when he had a 1.50 ERA in 68 appearances. Ironically, he served up the go-ahead two-run homer to Washington’s Howie Kendrick in the seventh inning of Game 7 of the 2019 World Series and the Nationals went on to a 6-2 victory.
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–Field Level Media