And it’s not going to be Johnny Estrada anytime soon.  Estrada’s elbow and arm problems appear to be getting worse, not better.   Estrada received a cortisone shot and he’s pretty much shut down.  Lo Duca is taking BP and catching bullpen sessions now and still on route to be ready for opening night.  That leaves the Nats searching for an alternative backup to Lo Duca, since the Flores plan is still in place.

From Bill Ladson:

“We don’t see Flores as a backup here unless Paul is not ready from the get-go to catch four or five times a week,” manager Manny Acta said. “That doesn’t mean we can’t change our mind, and we reserve the right to do it. We said all along that if Flores can go and play every single day in the Major or Minor Leagues, we don’t mind that. We just don’t want the kid to play twice or three times a week.”

The two catchers that will battle for the back-up spot include Chad Moeller and Wil Nieves.

There’s no doubt that we’re Flores fans.  While we hope the team does whatever is best for the young catcher, it would be nice to see him playing in the new park this year.  As far as back-ups to Lo Duca go, Nieves impressed us a lot last week.  His past numbers aren’t so great, but he’s only played in 63 games.  His double against the Marlins on the 29th helped produce the only run that day.   He seemed to be getting along great with our pitchers (afterall, someone’s gotta catch bullpen sessions and BP since the others are hurt) and he was really good with fans. 

There’s still lots to be determined before we have answers on the catcher situation, but it continues to be a topic of concern for us.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 7th, 2008 at 12:13 pm and is filed under Injuries. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.