Davey Martinez was on the bench in his first year as a big league manager when an injury to veteran outfielder Howie Kendrick led the Nationals to decide that it was time to bring Juan Soto up to the big leagues to make his debut as a 19-year-old.
Martinez was trusted with the handling of one of the top prospects in Washington’s system then, and he’s once again being trusted with a number of young players now.
Luis García, 20, is the youngest of them, and when Starlin Castro suffered a broken wrist in Friday’s game with the Orioles in Baltimore, the Nationals brought the top infield prospect up and told him he’d be playing second in the big leagues after he’d worked his way up to Double-A in the club’s organization in 2019.