Davies allowed two runs on seven hits and a walk over five innings in Thursday's Grapefruit League game against the Astros. He struck out five.
Facing most of Houston's likely Opening Day lineup, Davies kept the ball in the yard and counted Jose Altuve, Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker among his strikeout victims. The 31-year-old right-hander is in camp with the Nationals on an NRI, so he isn't even guaranteed a roster spot, but the rebuilding team can use innings-eaters at the back of the rotation, and Davies still seems capable of doing at least that much. He stumbled to a woeful 7.00 ERA, 1.66 WHIP and 19.1 percent strikeout rate over 82.1 innings for Arizona in 2023, but per Mark Zuckerman of MASN Sports, Davies built up to 89 pitches Thursday, and over 10.1 innings this spring he has an encouraging 13:5 K:BB.