MIAMI — While the Nationals were spraying champagne in Atlanta on Tuesday night, Ryan Zimmerman was in Viera, Florida, a temporary home nearly 500 miles away.
Zimmerman met up with a handful of coaches, including assistant strength and conditioning coach Matt Eiden, and watched on television as his teammates beat the Braves to clinch the National League East. He didn’t have a single drink that night. The next morning, he played five innings in the team’s instructional league as his strained right hamstring continued to heal.
“Would I have rather been [in Atlanta]?” he said. “Of course.”
Zimmerman couldn’t wait to return to Washington’s lineup, and that moment finally arrived Saturday afternoon. After missing 55 games with the hamstring strain, he was activated off the 15-day disabled list and returned to the Nationals’ starting lineup, hitting sixth and playing left field. He singled to right field in his first at-bat.
Zimmerman said his hamstring is still not 100 percent healthy. But it’s healthy enough.
“I just have to be smart,” he said. “It’s not like I can go out and play 50 percent. There’s just things I’m going to have to be careful with. I can still go out there and hit. I’d say I can run at 80-85 percent. Hopefully it’ll get a little bit better as we go on.”
Zimmerman’s return creates a difficult but welcome dilemma for manager Matt Williams. The 29-year-old veteran can play third base, first base and left field. But since the addition of two-time All-Star infielder Asdrubal Cabrera at the trade deadline, there has been no clear void in the lineup for Zimmerman to fill. Williams now has a surplus of proven starters.
The manager said he will likely play Zimmerman at all three positions during the final week of the season, shuffling the rest of the lineup accordingly to give various other players a day off.
“It’s important for him to get at-bats,” Williams said. “Wherever we can find space for that we’ll try to do that, and try to get him four ABs as much as we can so he can have rhythm and timing. It could be in all three of those positions.”
What role Zimmerman will fill in the postseason, however, remains unclear.
“We’ll see what happens,” Zimmerman said. “I’m just excited to be back and be able to help in some way. When it first happened, it was 50-50 [whether] we thought I was going to get to play or not. It’s exciting to at least be a part of it, however it turns out to be. It’s good to be back in some capacity.”
One of the most significant challenges for Zimmerman will be balancing his short-term effort with his long-term health. Though he might want to run out every ground ball, charge down the third-base line to field a bunt or sprint in left field to make a catch in the gap, he will have to avoid such plays to ensure the well-being of his hamstring.
“It’s hard. It’s hard for any player,” Williams said. “You react and then you go. But in the back of your mind, you’re telling yourself to go not as hard as you really want to do. It’s not easy. In left field, he can do that a little bit. In first base, he can do that a little bit. We’ll look to get him as much opportunity in those two spots.”
Catcher Wilson Ramos has dealt with similar issues for much of the past two seasons. He went on the disabled list twice in 2013 with left hamstring strains, then missed 14 games earlier this season with a right hamstring strain.
Ramos said he has given Zimmerman some advice about treating bothersome hamstrings, and learning to play smart.
“Now I tell him, ’Don’t run hard. It’s not necessary. Don’t do it,’” Ramos said. “Like me. It’s not necessary, so I don’t do it. … If I need to score from first or second, if I have to do that, I would do it. Right now? We’re in the playoffs, so you don’t have to do more.
“But It’s hard. It’s sometimes hard because I say if it’s not necessary to run hard, I’m not going to do it. But between those white lines, you don’t have time for [thinking] about that. You always want to play hard, you want to play 100 percent, 150 percent.”
Zimmerman went 3 for 8 with a home run Friday before driving to Marlins Park to rejoin the Nationals. In addition to the tender hamstring muscle, he will also need to adjust to big-league pitching after missing more than three months. He said he is most focused on strengthening his hands and getting used to swinging the bat as frequently as he does on a game day.
“I got a good amount of at-bats in Viera off pretty good pitchers. So that kind of helped out,” he said. “No matter who you face down there, it’s a different situation and a different feel up here.”
Zimmerman’s teammates were ecstatic to have him back, and the two-time Silver Slugger was equally excited. Between the hamstring strain and fractured thumb he suffered in the first month of the season, Zimmerman had missed 99 of the team’s 154 games before Saturday night.
“It’s been a rough year for me, obviously, with the thumb and now this,” Zimmerman said. “But as far as team and organization, it’s been one of the best years we’ve ever had. I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. It’s OK. Things happen, and I’ve been lucky.”
• Tom Schad can be reached at tschad@washingtontimes.com.
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