Friday evening, in Washington's 7-3 loss to the New York Mets, rookie second baseman Danny Espinosa did not start and was also not used off the bench as a pinch hitter, ended his attempt to play in all 162 games for Washington this year. Espinosa was adamant in his desire to play every game for the Nationals this year, as noted in this July article from the Washington Post's Adam Kilgore:
"You're supposed to play all 162, aren't you? I want to play in every game. I want to start in every game. I don't want to miss a single thing. I hate sitting out. I love playing every single day, whether I'm hurt, whether I'm not feeling 100 percent. I want to play."
Obviously, manager Davey Johnson felt it was a good time to rest Espinosa who, despite struggling in the second half of the season, still leads all National League rookies in home runs and is second in runs batted in. Still, it will be interesting to see how Espinosa responds to this forced day off, especially given his opinion of what a day off means, be it regular season or offseason:
"To me, you can't take days off. I look at days off not playing just the same way as you take days off in the offseason training. If you take a day off in the training season, you're giving somebody an opportunity to be better than you. I'm not going to take a day off. I don't care if I'm struggling, if I'm hitting, great. I ain't taking a day off."