When Hunter Harvey first felt what he described as a cramp in his right forearm during Wednesday night’s relief appearance, he knew he now faced a serious dilemma. Should he let the Nationals know he might be hurt, or should he try to pitch through it, knowing he was quickly establishing himself as one of the more trusted members of Davey Martinez’s bullpen only two weeks after joining the club?

Throughout his career with the Orioles, Harvey tended to keep these things to himself. That got him nowhere, aside from the injured list, usually for months at a time.

This time, he decided to speak up immediately. And though he’s now on the 10-day IL with a right pronator strain, he believes the stint will be brief because it’s being addressed now and not later.

“I’ve had too many times where I’ve felt stuff like this that I told them: ‘I think I can pitch with it; I don’t think it would be a problem,’ ” Harvey said. “But I’ve pitched with stuff like this before, and I’ll start doing something different trying to protect it and then I’ll end up blowing something out.”

Martinez certainly appreciated Harvey’s willingness to be forthcoming with his injury, an approach plenty of players in his position wouldn’t take.

Davey Martinez knew this might happen. He’d been through a condensed, three-week spring training in 1995 following the end of the players’ strike, and he remembered the physical damage that caused, on pitchers in particular, once the season began later than originally planned.

So the last thing Martinez is right now is surprised. He had a hunch some pitchers wouldn’t be ready for the regular season grind after the short camp. And wouldn’t you know what happened?

First it was right-hander Mason Thompson, who landed on the 10-day injured list April 10 with biceps tendinitis. Then came the back-to-back blows this week: Sean Doolittle, who sprained his left elbow ligament, followed by Hunter Harvey, who has a pronator strain in his right forearm.

“When I went through this as a player in ’95, (for) a lot of these pitchers, April was pretty strenuous,” Martinez said. “I don’t know if it’s anything related to the short spring training, but you’ve got to look at (that), trying to ramp these guys up. That being said, this is the reason we tried to have so many different options, in case something like this would happen.”

Thompson pitched twice in the season’s first three days before he was placed on the IL. Doolittle pitched in six of the Nats’ first 12 games before telling club officials about the elbow pain that was growing worse. And Harvey, who pitched four times in 10 days after he was called up from Triple-A Rochester, reported physical issues following Wednesday night’s game. By Thursday afternoon, he joined the others on the IL.

The Nationals were relieved to learn Josh Bell could return to today’s lineup after departing Wednesday night’s game with tightness in his left knee. They were not so relieved to learn another member of their bullpen is out with an arm ailment.

The Nats placed Hunter Harvey on the 10-day injured list shortly before today’s series finale against the Diamondbacks with a right pronator strain, a situation that appears to have just emerged within the last 24 hours after the hard-throwing reliever tossed a scoreless inning.

Harvey, the former Orioles first-round pick whose career has been beset by a smorgasbord of injuries, made four scoreless appearances since joining the Nationals bullpen during the season’s opening weekend. The 27-year-old was starting to earn his way into manager Davey Martinez’s good graces and perhaps start getting called upon in high-leverage situations, but something apparently didn’t feel right during Wednesday night’s game.

Harvey entered that outing averaging 97 mph on his fastball in his first three appearances. That number went down to 96 mph during Wednesday’s game, bottoming out at 94.3 mph on one of the 12 pitches he threw to three Arizona batters.

The pronator is part of the flexor mass group of muscles and tendons in the forearm, near the elbow. A pronator strain would be to one of the muscles in that area, not an uncommon injury for pitchers.