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Kieboom still has the confidence of manager Dave Martinez and the Nationals' organization that he can emerge as the team's starting third baseman, Maria Torres of The Athletic reports. "It's hard to judge [Kieboom] on these short snippets of games and at-bats," GM Mike Rizzo said Thursday. "We have to lean towards our evaluators who have seen him for years and progressed through the system and trust that he's the player that we think he is."

The 23-year-old has only a .181/.309/.232 slash line through his first 44 big-league games spread over the last two seasons, but Kieboom was far more productive during his last extended stint at Triple-A in 2019 when he delivered a .303/.409/.493 line over 109 contests. The Nats backed up that confidence in his development by not adding any real veteran competition for him at the hot corner, but if Kieboom does falter again, the team would have the option of sliding Starlin Castro over to third base and handing second base to Luis Garcia.

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