LOVERRO: Danny Espinosa feeling at home following move back to shortstop

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

VIERA, Fla. — Danny Espinosa was born and raised in Santa Ana, California. It is still his place of residence.

But, for the first time since he broke in as a rookie with the Washington Nationals in 2010, Danny Espinosa is home — at shortstop.

“I’m back where I started,” said the bearded Espinosa, days before he shaved his latest facial growth, which grows faster than a Chia pet. “It feels unbelievable. This is where I’ve always wanted to be, at shortstop.”

With the departure of mainstay Ian Desmond, Espinosa is penciled in at the position for now, even though one of their top prospects, Trea Turner, the former first-round pick acquired from the San Diego Padres with pitcher Joe Ross in a December 2014 heist, is considered to be the future at the position.

It will be tough for Turner to unseat Espinosa, at least this season, as the veteran entering his sixth year is treasuring his opportunity to play the position that he was drafted to play.

“I’m getting the opportunity to be back at short, and I couldn’t ask for anything more — to be playing that position again with the team that drafted me,” Espinosa said.

Espinosa, 28, was selected in the third round in 2008, a slick-fielding, hard-nosed shortstop out of Long Beach State. He was brought along as a shortstop through the Nationals’ minor league system until 2010, where, at Triple-A Syracuse, with Desmond emerging as the team’s starting shortstop, Espinosa moved to second base.

He’s been there, for the most part, ever since, though he has filled in at shortstop and third base and even played five games in left field last season. He didn’t think it would take this long to find his way back to shortstop.

“I didn’t think I would stay at second so long because I had always been a shortstop,” Espinosa said, “but with Ian blossoming the way he did, it was easy for me to stay at second. But, I always thought in the back of my mind that somehow I would wind up at shortstop.”

Even with Desmond at short, many baseball observers believed that Espinosa was the organization’s best defensive shortstop. His struggles have been at the plate. After a breakout rookie year in 2011, hitting 29 doubles, 21 home runs, scoring 72 runs, driving in 66 with a .236 average and stealing 17 bases, Espinosa followed that up in 2012 with 37 doubles, 17 home runs, 56 RBI and 20 stolen bases with a .247 average. His strikeouts, though, jumped from 166 to 189.

Then came his injury-filled 2013, where a wrist and rotator cuff injuries limited his time to just 44 games and featured the arrival of rookie Anthony Rendon at second. Espinosa hit rock-bottom offensively in 2014, batting just .219 in 114 games with 122 strikeouts in 364 at-bats. When Washington moved Ryan Zimmerman from third base to first base last season, Rendon moved to third, but the Nationals traded for Yunel Escobar during the winter to be their starting second baseman. Injuries re-opened the door for more playing time for Espinosa, and he played well, for the most part, batting .240 with 88 hits in 364 at bats with 21 doubles, 13 home runs, 37 RBI and 59 runs.

It’s his glove, though, and his toughness and competitiveness — he’s one of general manager Mike Rizzo’s favorite players — that has kept Espinosa on the roster. He’ll have a chance to show his stuff this year at the position he loves.
“My idol was Omar Vizquel,” Espinosa said, referring to the great Cleveland Indians shortstop. “He was a defense-first shortstop and that was what I wanted to be.

“Things always haven’t worked out for me here the way that I thought,” he said. “I thought at one point I would be traded. I didn’t know what their plan was. It’s been frustrating here at times. Probably when I got hurt in 2013 was the hardest for me. I had never really been hurt in my career. I didn’t know how to handle it the right way — to not be able to play competitively and trying to come back too early. That was hard for me to go through.”

Though he had a bounce-back year of sorts last season, it was hard because of the team’s struggles, failing to meet preseason expectations and finishing second in the National League East with 83 wins. It was in part of the injuries to players like Rendon and Escobar that Espinosa got more playing time.

“You have a guy like Rendon out for 100 games, that hurts,” he said. “But, the guys that stepped in played well, and we were winning at the same time, so I don’t know if that was the issue because we were winning games. When the guys came back, we had been playing well. I don’t know what it was. Sometimes you start going downhill and it snowballs, and you can’t stop it. Injury hurt us because it never gave some of those guys a chance to get going in their rhythm. They didn’t get the at-bats. They didn’t get 600 at-bats.”

Manager Matt Williams was fired because of that snowball rolling downhill. “It got a little tense around here last year,” Espinosa said. “You could cut the tension with a knife.”

He is looking forward to playing for new manager Dusty Baker. “Everything I’ve heard about him is good,” he said. “We’ve talked some. I like him.”

Baker didn’t know much about him as a shortstop.

“I knew him as a second baseman from the other side of the field,” Baker said. “There wasn’t much need for me to know much about Danny Espinosa, except how to get him out. I didn’t even know he played shortstop. I’ve talked to people here and learned the more about his background. He made an outstanding play [in Sunday’s intersquad game] on a double play. I’m not surprised. He has more speed than I knew from the other side of the field, and the guys here are excited about him playing shortstop. I commend him for waiting his turn.”

How long will that turn last? What about Turner, the kid everyone wants to anoint as the Nationals’ shortstop?

“They draft someone every year to take your job,” Espinosa said. “What’s the difference?”

The difference is that this year, Espinosa is at home. He will likely be very protective of it.

⦁ Thom Loverro is co-host of “The Sports Fix,” noon to 2 p.m. daily on ESPN 980 and espn980.com.