Hunter Strickland and Roenis Elías were both on the Seattle Mariners’ team bus on the way to play the Texas Rangers in Globe Life Park in Arlington when they learned about they had been traded to the Washington Nationals before Wednesday’s 4:00 PM Trade Deadline.
“I was just surprised,” Strickland said before his first game with the Nats in Phoenix, AZ’s Chse Field, where the Nationals started a three-game set on Friday night.
“It was an exciting surprise to say the least, but I was sitting on the bus waiting to go to the field in Texas and my brother sent me a text and he was like, ‘For real?