Irvin lands on 15-day IL with right shoulder strain; Poulin recalled

ATLANTA – Nationals right-handed pitcher Jake Irvin has been placed on the 15-day injured list with a right shoulder strain.

Irvin left Saturday’s game in the middle of the sixth inning after he threw one warmup pitch and felt what he described as “tightness.” Irvin underwent an MRI and was diagnosed with the strain prior to Sunday’s series finale in Atlanta.

Irvin hadn’t allowed a hit over five scoreless innings with seven strikeouts and one walk on 80 pitches (52 strikes) before leaving the field with Washington’s training staff. He still earned the win (2-4) as the Nationals defeated the Braves, 2-0.

“[The diagnosis is] overall positive,” Irvin said. “We have a good medical team here that will help me take care of it, and then we’ll be back as soon as possible.”

Irvin, who has a 5.23 ERA in 11 starts this season, said he doesn’t think the injury is going to be long term and that the diagnosis was the, “best news that we could have heard.”

“It’s a little bit of good and bad,” said manager Blake Butera. “He’ll go on the IL but it’s something not too concerning that we think will be a minimum IL stay for now. Obviously we’ll monitor it the next few days and see how he’s feeling. The thoughts are that it could have been worse.”

“[I’ll] just attack it with treatment and strengthening and just trying to do whatever we can to get this thing to heal up as quick as possible,” Irvin said.

Irvin will be shut down for the next couple of days.

“He’ll be down from throwing today and tomorrow, and then he’ll start throwing the next day,” Butera said. “I plan on him feeling good when he starts throwing.”

Butera has not thought about how his club will navigate Irvin’s spot in the rotation.

“[We have a] game today, a series in Cleveland and an off-day,” Butera said. “A lot of stuff is going to happen before that next start so we’ll talk through it the next three days.”

The Nationals recalled left-handed pitcher PJ Poulin from Triple-A Rochester. Poulin has a 3.32 ERA over 23 appearances (21 2/3 innings) with five games started and five saves.

Poulin last pitched for the Nationals on May 18 when he allowed one run over one inning in a 16-7 loss to the Mets.

“It’s great having PJ back,” Butera said. “He’s a lefty out of the bullpen that was valuable for us before we had to make the tough decision to send him to Triple-A. I’m not thrilled that Jake has to go on the IL, but I’m happy to be able to get PJ back with us.”