Washington Nationals manager Matt Williams called Clint Robinson into his office Saturday afternoon, and the conversation that followed will probably stick with the 30-year-old first baseman forever.
“Where’s your wife at right now?” Williams asked, as Robinson later recalled.
“She’s back home in Arkansas,” he answered.
“Well, she need to jump on a plane to D.C.” Williams said.
And that, Robinson said, was more or less how he found out he had made the Nationals’ Opening Day roster. After spending eight years in the minor leagues with three different organizations, the former 25th-round pick will begin this season on a big-league roster for the first time.
“I’m on cloud nine. Kind of speechless right now,” Robinson said. “Just got off the phone with my wife, she was really happy. Told her she needs to jump on a plane and get out here. I’m going to be in the big leagues.”
The Nationals made what could be their final two roster moves of the spring after Saturday’s exhibition game against the New York Yankees at Nationals Park, re-assigning left-hander Rich Hill and outfielder Mike Carp to minor-league camp. Hill expects to report to Triple-A Syracuse. Carp, who has an opt-out clause in his contract, could elect free agency in hopes of latching on with another team.
The moves cemented Robinson’s spot and drastically increased the chances that left-hander Xavier Cedeno will enter the season as Washington’s left-handed specialist. The team does have other options with fellow lefties Felipe Rivero and Matt Grace still on the 40-man roster, but Cedeno is the front-runner.
Williams said those final decisions will be made Sunday. As for Saturday’s moves, the second-year manager said there were a wide range of emotions.
“It’s fun to be able to tell somebody that the hard work that they’ve done has paid off,” he said. “On the other side of the coin, it’s not easy when it’s the other way. For Clint, he’s excited about it and I think he can help us.”
Robinson has a total of 13 major-league at-bats in the majors, most recently with the Los Angeles Dodgers last season, but he has spent most of his professional baseball career bouncing around the minors. He started in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and last played in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with stops in places like Delaware, New Hampshire and Nebraska in between. In more than 3,300 minor-league at-bats, Robinson is hitting .302 with a .510 slugging percentage.
Robinson was one of several non-roster invitees to spring training vying for the same role as a backup first baseman and left-handed hitter off the bench. As spring wore on, he said he felt increasingly optimistic he would the team.
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“You see the cuts going on around you in the locker room and you think, ’Still here. They haven’t called me in there,’” Robinson said. “So you just got to keep going, keep plugging away. If they like what you’re doing, they keep you around. And that’s what happened.”
An Alabama native, Robinson had only played 10 minor-league games in the outfield before arriving in Viera, Florida, for the beginning of camp. He was asked to spend more time away from his natural position, first base, and spent long hours working with Tony Tarasco to grow more comfortable in the field. He eventually played 14 games in the outfield this spring, an adjustment that he said was incredibly beneficial for his overall game.
“It’s something different that made my body feel a lot better,” Robinson said. “I know you’d think the opposite, but it helped loosen me up. It kind of got me in better shape going through all those reps early in spring training.”
Saturday’s moves leave Washington with 25 healthy players entering Monday’s season-opener against the New York Mets at Nationals Park. Reliever Casey Janssen, third baseman Anthony Rendon and outfielders Nate McLouth, Denard Span and Jayson Werth are all expected to begin the season on the disabled list.
• Tom Schad can be reached at tschad@washingtontimes.com.
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