Last winter’s ultimately fruitless search for a bona fide closer dragged on through the start of Spring Training and into the regular season as the Washington Nationals tried to find an in-house option after coming up empty in their attempts to lure a big free agent to D.C. or find a trade.
Even after they’d acquired a trio of relievers, bringing Ryan Madson and Sean Doolittle over from the Oakland A’s in a pre-deadline, and bringing Brandon Kintzler from the Minnesota Twins right before the deadline passed, it still wasn’t completely clear which pitcher would handle the ninth inning, though now-former Nationals’ skipper Dusty Baker did reach out to colleagues to get a good feel for the new options in the bullpen.