Nationals considered using openers, but recent surge may make it moot

Early in 2018, the Tampa Bay Rays started to deploy Sergio Romo to the mound in the first inning, turning conventional baseball wisdom on its head.

Romo is a relief pitcher, not a starter. And he would only come in to pitch for one inning, or even just one out.

The Rays began a trend last year of MLB teams using “openers” — not starting pitchers, more like closers who open games. It made its way deep into that season’s playoffs, with the Milwaukee Brewers naming “initial out-getters” instead of starters for important October matchups.

So with the Washington Nationals suffering from the league’s worst bullpen ERA (6.81 through Monday), it was natural for the team’s decision-makers to kick around creative solutions.

“We’ve discussed (using openers) with our back-end-of-the-rotation guys,” general manager Mike Rizzo said in a radio interview last week. “I’m certainly not as open-minded with our big three, but we have looked at it and discussed it with our back-of-the-rotation type of guys.”

The Nationals have yet to use an opener — and at this point, they may never do so. What was one of the worst teams in baseball three weeks ago has found a groove and won seven of its last nine games, thanks to strong starting pitching performances from the top of the rotation to the bottom.

Max Scherzer struck out 15 Cincinnati Reds on Sunday, and his offense finally backed him up to get a 4-1 win. A few days earlier, Anibal Sanchez tossed six shutout innings to earn his first win of the season over the Braves. Patrick Corbin had a complete-game shutout just 10 days ago.

The “opener” strategy, so far, has been used only when a team has a dearth of quality starters to pick from, not when a team’s bullpen has struggled.

On paper, the Nationals have one of the game’s top trios in Scherzer, Corbin and Stephen Strasburg. Meanwhile, only one Washington relief pitcher with 10 or more appearances has an ERA better than 4.00. That is closer Sean Doolittle, the team’s most reliable reliever by a long shot.

If the Nationals did want to use an opener every few games, it’s unclear who would be the right fit. It is unlikely they would move Doolittle from ninth-inning work to the first. Tanner Rainey has pitched well since being called up from Triple-A on May 18, but he is still green in the majors.

There’s the curious case of Erick Fedde, whose services have been split almost equally between starting and relieving since last year. But Rizzo said he likes how Fedde is performing as the Nationals’ No. 5 starter while Jeremy Hellickson rehabs a shoulder injury.

While it would be a “group decision,” Rizzo said, manager Dave Martinez would have the final say on whether to tinker with the pitching strategy. Martinez seemed to throw water on the idea last week when speaking to reporters on the road.

“Our starters go deep in games and they are doing really well, so it’s hard to take him out of what they’re used to doing and tell them that they are going to pitch in the third inning or second inning,” Martinez said. “So for right now, I like where our starters are at. We just got to continue to focus and figure out who is going to pitch the seventh, who is going to pitch the eighth, and we just got to get the ball to Doolittle.”

The Nationals’ main tack for fixing their bullpen has been personnel changes, most recently taking a flier on 42-year-old Fernando Rodney. Unless the team thinks Rodney can be its Sergio Romo and has kept that plan under wraps, openers may not appear at Nationals Park for quite some time.