Davey Martinez spoke at the beginning of 2024 spring training about reliever Tanner Rainey returning from Tommy John surgery and hopefully taking on a role at the back of the Nationals’ bullpen. However, once things got going, they quickly admitted that Rainey’s work wasn’t good enough to get them where they wanted them to be.
“His velo isn’t where we want it to be yet,” Martinez said in late March. It’s only the first day. Let’s see how he turns out. I’m glad he’s back and I’m glad he’s pitching. We’re going to take him out, but it’s probably going to be in more low-leverage situations until he gets more confident. ”
It would help if Rainey’s speed could reach the low to at least mid-90s, but it wasn’t that early, the captain said.
By the end of April, Rainey had posted a .404/.508/.692 line with a 9.82 ERA and 8.26 ERA in his first 11 games and 11 innings pitched.
His fastball still lacks velocity, Martinez added. “He’s out of position. A lot of the balls he threw were pretty much down the middle.
“When you can’t throw as hard as you used to, you have to start locating your pitches. And he didn’t use his slider as much as I thought he would. He was throwing a lot more fastballs.
“[Pitching Coach Jim] Hickey is going to talk to him. know [Pitching Strategist Sean Doolittle] I’m going to sit down with him for a little bit and try to figure some things out. ”
“We will continue to work with him,” the manager said a week later.
“We’re playing around with his mechanics a little bit and trying to get him to stay on his feet a little bit more. The important thing is being able to throw strikes consistently.” He does pretty well when he’s around the strike zone. When his slider is in the zone, it’s a good pitch for him, so we have to get him forward, we give him the understanding that strike one is still his best pitch. He has to let him, and he has to attack the strike zone. We will continue to work with him and see where we are. I have no intention of giving up on him.
“We’re trying to ease his path and hopefully put him in a situation where he starts to feel a little bit better. But he’s a big part of the bullpen and we’re You’re going to need him.”
Martinez added that speeds started to pick up at times, but there was still a lot of work going on at that point.
“Sometimes it’s going to be 94-95, but you’ve got to make him understand, ‘Hey, I’m not there right now,'” he said.
“It’s more about pitch selection. It’s more about location. Throwing fastballs up the middle doesn’t work, especially against good hitters.”
Through the process, Martinez said he learned a lot about Rainey as a person.
“He’s a Bulldog, he really is. He’s resilient, he’s ready, he wants to get back on the mound and play baseball, and I love that about him.”
They were working hard to find a fix, even though he still wasn’t where they wanted him to be.
“It could be mechanical, it could be from different causes, so we had to focus on getting his lower body to work with his upper body,” Martinez said.
“He’s fighting to catch up to his arm right now. Some things are good, some things are bad, so consistency is all he needs right now.”
Rainey pitched just three times in May as the team tried to get him back on track. When he made his pitch, the song of progress was heard.
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Photo by Jess Rapfogel/Getty Images
“His velo was up again,” Martinez said after the May 19 outing. “I thought he threw the ball well, but when you get behind these good hitters and leave your fastball in the middle of the plate, things happen. But overall I thought he was much better. I thought, velo was there, but now it’s important to throw strikes and be consistent.”
“Now he has to understand he has to throw the ball in the strike zone.”
Martinez explained in early June why he was still using Rainey sparingly at that point, trying to find the right spot to put him on the mound in games.
“We know his struggles. He’s working,” Martinez said. “He’s pitching in the bullpen and trying to get better. We’re going to find some spots to put him in, but our games were pretty close for the most part and we’re trying to win as many ballgames as possible. I’m here, but I know [Bullpen Coach] ricky [Bones] was working with him and Hickey talked to him about some mechanical things. He’s getting better, he really is. His velo was up a little bit, then it fluctuated, then it went down. So we try to keep him consistent. That’s the most important thing. So we’re going to continue to work with him and that’s all we can do. ”
In seven games from May 21 to June 25, Rainey held a shutout, and the manager praised the relief pitcher’s efforts.
“We’re going to continue to use him the way he is. He might need to throw a little more, but I like the way he throws the ball. The biggest thing right now is that he’s improving his performance. Again, that’s great. So we have to keep him there, but he might play some games here… just to get him out a little bit more. But he’s throwing the ball well now.”
“He continues to work on the rubber. He’s using his legs a little more,” Martinez said a week later.
“Then his arm catches up to him. Now he’s able to put the ball in the strike zone more and repeat pitch after pitch. He was very clean yesterday. It was really good.”
Martinez slowly worked Rainey back into the mix, but with mixed results.
But by August, after making some trades at the deadline, they started putting Rainey in more high-leverage situations.
“He’s done it before,” Martinez said.
“He’s done a much better job. He doesn’t have the velocity that he used to, but he understands how to pitch. He’s positioning his fastballs better, which is great.”
“He’s gotten a lot better, really a lot better,” the coach said in mid-September. “I’m starting to see my tongue go up a little bit. My slider is a little bit better, but it took me a while to feel that way, but that’s part of the process with Tommy John and that’s how the machine works. It takes him a little while to get going, whether it’s visually or physically, but he’s found his potential and his rhythm has changed a little bit and he’s pitching a lot better.”
“I think he’s starting to feel confident again,” Martinez said a few days later.
“Maybe we’ll use him in a little more high-leverage situation, but I want him to get through this year feeling good about himself.
“Coming back from Tommy John, throwing out of the bullpen, I’ve been trying to protect him a little bit and he’s done a good job. So we’ll see how next week goes.”
“I want him to continue to grow and continue to do what he’s doing.”
When asked if he thought Rainey would ever reach his pre-TJS velocity in the high 90s, Martinez said he’s at least on track to do so over the course of the season.
“Really, only time will tell. When he started the season he was 91-92 with 93 touches and now he’s 93-94 with 95-96 touches. He’s getting better. So let’s see where he is by the end of the year and how he returns to spring training.”
In the end, he said, the club’s patient approach paid dividends for Rainey.
“For us, we looked at him before he got injured and we knew that sometimes, like Tommy Johns, they say he’s going to make a full recovery in a year and a half or 17 months. In Laney’s case, given the state of his mechanics, we wanted to make sure he had ample opportunity to go out and try to recover, and I’m glad we did that. .
“He’s throwing the ball better, he’s got a clicky slider, he’s got a lot better shape. So he’s doing well.”
In the end, Rainey finished the season with the second-most appearances of his career (50), but as the club noted in their season-in-review, he said:He recorded a 2.84 ERA (12 ERA/38.0 ERA), 35 strikeouts, and a batting average of .182. [opponents’ batting average] He played in 37 games from May 21 until the end of the season.”
