WASHINGTON D.C. >> Not quite there yet, but Brant Hurter knows he’s heading in the right direction. His 2.2 innings of work against the Nationals Wednesday in Game 1 of the doubleheader showed him at least that much.

“Not 100 percent, yet,” he said. “But it was a good step.”

It’s been a very sudden and baffling stretch for the Tigers’ lefty reliever. It started on June 19 when the Pirates nicked him with four singles and four runs (three earned) in the 10th inning.

But he was still throwing strikes. That stopped in the three outings that followed where he walked five batters, hit three and got only two outs. Before Wednesday, he faced 11 straight batters without recording an out.

“I think it’s maybe a little mechanical,” Hurter said Wednesday morning, prior to Game 1. “But you have a couple of bad ones and it starts getting into your head. Then you have to figure out what’s the mechanical part and what’s in your head.

“Then you’re trying to figure out if I’m thinking too much or thinking too little. It’s a fine line.”

When you are 6-6 and you have a funky, rock-a-baby delivery like Hurter does, the timing can certainly get out of whack. It’s happened to him for stretches in the minor leagues. This is the first time he’s dealt with it in the glare of the big leagues.

Since the Pirates outing, he’s gone back to the drawing board a couple of times trying to see where the glitch might be, where the fix might be. He thought he had it before his outing against the Twins Friday.

But here’s the rub: There is no way to simulate the effects of game adrenaline in bullpen sessions. He got into the game and everything he worked on deserted him. The outing lasted three batters — walk, single, hit batter.

“Everything gets sped up with adrenaline,” he said. “You make sure you’re feeling good in catch play and getting off the mound and hoping that translates.”

Hurter said he could have a hitter stand in the box during his bullpen sessions to help him find his angles and lanes but that’s not the issue.

“The batter’s not the problem,” he said. “It’s figuring out timing. It’s all just a timing issue and figuring out what’s throwing off the timing. Why is my arm here, why is it lower now, when I feel like I’ve been doing everything the same?”

The one constant in this recent stretch has been a tendency to rush.

“That’s one of the things I noticed,” Hurter said. “Especially in the last outing. I was moving too quick. I was rushing and trying to force what I was working on, which is another problem.

“If you’re thinking too much and trying to force everything, you’re not going to be as fluid.”

He knows exactly what he’s looking for and it’s not anything you could see on video or read in data sheets.

“It’s a feel thing for me,” he said. “I have to feel it and once I can feel it, I can make adjustments. But if I’m not feeling stuff, it’s just really hard to make adjustments on how to throw strikes when everything is out of whack.”

Wednesday’s outing was encouraging, if not perfect, because there were at-bats where he felt some of the old synchrony.

He got the first hitter he faced, Drew Millas, to pop out in two pitches. He got a called third strike on Jacob Young, dotting a 2-2 sinker at the top of the zone.

Those were against right-handed hitters. Next came the top of the Nationals’ order and lefties CJ Abrams and James Wood. Hurter couldn’t find the starting point on his sweeper and sprayed five pitches to walk Abrams.

But he found it against Wood and punched him out with back-to-back darting sweepers.

He gave up a run and four singles in the 2.2 innings, but he also struck out five. And he threw 31 strikes in 53 pitches.

“I have a ton of confidence with him,” manager AJ Hinch said. “I know that he knows he can get outs. We extended him a long time and ran him into the red on the gas tank.

“For Hurt, strikes are key. But he’s a tough angle for hitters. You saw them have really tough at-bats and given that we didn’t have the bulk (reliever) scripted for this game, it was a huge outing for us and for him.”

Hurter’s unique importance to the Tigers’ bullpen cannot be understated. His ability to control right-handed and left-handed hitters, his flexibility to pitch long or short relief and his ability to bounce back quickly between outings are vital.

So, even if he still doesn’t feel completely locked back in, his performance Wednesday had a lot of people in the Tigers’ organization breathing more comfortably.

“He’s a big arm and he’s going to be a big arm for us down the road,” catcher Jake Rogers said. “We need him to be in the zone. It was just a little tweak here and there. He made the adjustments. To get him back in the zone is huge because that’s a weird lefty and there’s a lot of lefty (hitters) in these lineups. He’s going to be big for us down the road.

“It was great to see him bounce back.”

Around the horn

Riley Greene is the second Tigers’ player age 24 or younger, since the advent of the All-Star Game in 1933, to reach 21 homers before the break. The other was Hall of Famer Hank Greenberg, who hit 24 before the break 90 years ago in 1935.

… Greene is the only left-handed hitter (non switch-hitter) in Tigers history to hit 21 homers before the break and the last hitter from either side to do it since J.D. Martinez in 2015.

… The last Tiger to accumulate 21 homers and 69 RBI before the break was Miguel Cabrera, who set a franchise record in 2013 with 30 homers and 95 RBI before the break.