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Jason Marquis made his second rehab start since having elbow surgery in May, pitching 3 1/3 innings for Double-A Harrisburg on Friday night. Marquis allowed three runs on five hits, walking a batter and striking out three. He threw 65 pitches for the Senators.
Assuming Marquis is ready to go in another one or two starts, things are going to start to get really interesting for the Nationals. He'd be coming back around the same time as Scott Olsen, with Jordan Zimmermann not far behind.
If Ross Detwiler is still in the rotation, the Nationals will only have two spots to spare in their rotation (assuming Stephen Strasburg and Livan Hernandez are fixtures). It's easy to see them swapping out Craig Stammen and J.D. Martin, but that still wouldn't get all three pitchers in the rotation. And none of this accounts for Chien-Ming Wang or Yuniesky Maya, who could both appear in the majors later this year. Strasburg should run out of innings sometime in late August or early September, which would clear room for a Hernandez-Marquis-Olsen-Zimmermann-Detwiler rotation, with Wang and/or Maya added in at some point.
And with Strasburg back in the picture in the spring, the odds of the Nationals being able to put together a solid rotation look much better, even if one of their injured starters doesn't come back to form.
