Nationals activate reliever from 60-day IL

The Nationals announced Friday afternoon that the club has activated right-hander Tanner Rainey from the 60-day injured list. In corresponding moves, left-hander Robert Garcia was placed on the paternity list, opening up a spot on the club’s active roster, while catcher Riley Adams was transferred to the 60-day IL to clear space on the 40-man roster.

The move sets Rainey, 30, up for his 2023 season debut. The right-hander underwent Tommy John surgery last August and has been working his way back ever since, but prior to his injury had posted solid numbers out of the Washington bullpen in 2022 with a 3.30 ERA and 4.18 FIP while racking up 12 saves in 30 innings of work. Since being traded from Cincinnati to the Nationals prior to the 2019 season, Rainey has largely been a quality bullpen arm. While his 4.42 ERA (97 ERA+) and 4.54 FIP as a National leave something to be desired, the mediocre career numbers can be attributed entirely to a brutal 2021 campaign that saw Rainey post a ghastly 7.39 ERA and 5.63 FIP in 38 appearances. Across his other three years in the majors with the Nationals, he’s posted ERAs below 4.00.

That being said, Rainey’s strong results in 2019, 2020 and 2022 hide serious control issues. He’s walked a whopping 15.5% of batters faced in his big league career, with figures north of 10% in every season except for the shortened 2020 campaign. Rainey also runs into further trouble as a flyball pitcher (career 36.1% groundball rate) who allows home runs at an elevated rate, with 17.2% of his fly balls allowed leaving the yard throughout his career. Fortunately, Rainey manages to make up for his lackluster walk rates and home run suppression numbers with tantalizing raw stuff, as demonstrated by his career strikeout rate of 31.2%, including an eye-popping 42.7% figure in 20 1/3 innings of work during the shortened 2020 campaign.

Given the fact that Washington can control Rainey via arbitration through the end of the 2025 season, it’s hardly a surprise that the club would want to see Rainey in action before the offseason as they look to decide whether or not to tend him a contract, which could include a slight raise over this year’s $1.5M salary. Given Rainey’s past success and high strikeout totals, the right-hander should have a chance to factor into the club’s late inning mix next season if he remains with the club throughout the offseason.

As for Garcia, the rookie southpaw’s placement on the paternity list likely brings his season to an end. The 27-year-old had a solid debut campaign split between the Marlins and the Nationals this year, with a 3.66 ERA, 3.54 FIP, and a 26.6% strikeout rate in 32 innings of work. Adams’s season ended in hamate surgery earlier this month, so the move to the 60-day IL is nothing more than procedural for the young catcher, who slashed an impressive .273/.331/.476 in 44 games in the majors this year.