WASHINGTON – Freddie Freeman usually pleads to be added to the Braves lineup on those rare occasions when he’s healthy and not in it.

But when Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez told the slumping first baseman late Wednesday that he was going to rest him for the series finale against the Nationals, Freeman didn’t protest. At least not much.

“He texted me last night saying he was going to give me the day off,” Freeman said before Thursday’s series finale against the Nationals, when Kelly Johnson was in the lineup at first base. “Obviously you guys know I’m not too thrilled about it, but when you’re hitting .080 there’s nothing much you can really say.”

Freeman homered off Max Scherzer in the first inning on opening day, but was 1-for-24 since then with seven walks and nine strikeouts. He has more intentional walks (three) than hits (two), and Freeman was 0-for-9 with three walks in the first three games of the Nationals series.

“For some reason I’m down (with his front foot) but my bat speed is just not there,” said Freeman, who keeps his approach simple and usually is fine as long his timing is good in regards to planting his front foot. “I don’t know if I’m tensing my shoulders and I’ve got to get loose; that’s what I was just working on (Thursday in the batting cage).

“But my swing feels great. I’m healthy, I feel great. So it’s just kind of weird that the hits aren’t coming. I’ve never had this problem before. I feel good, I feel down, I feel ready to go, but everything just keeps fouling off or going to left field.”

When he’s hitting opposite-field line drives to left field, Freeman is pleased. But not when he’s hitting balls to left field simply because he’s late with his swing. That’s been the case so far this season, he said. And it began during spring training, when four of his eight hits were homers but Freeman felt out of sorts in the last 2 ½ weeks of camp.

He struck out looking in each of his final two at-bats in Wednesday’s 3-0 loss to the Nationals, including with two runners in scoring position to end the fifth inning with the Braves trailing 3-0. That dropped Freeman to 1-for-8 with runners in scoring position, with four walks, one hit-by-pitch and four strikeouts.

“All I can really do is come here and — I was just in the (batting) cage for 40 minutes — just try to figure it out,” Freeman said after a session in the underground batting cage at Nationals Park four hours before Thursday’s game. “It’s never gone on this long, but all I can do is stay positive. Keep going out there and be ready to go when he calls my name. Hopefully it’s today in a later inning in a big situation, so I can finally come through.”

Freeman has had longer slumps, but hardly ever when he’s been healthy. And that’s the thing – he said he’s completely healthy right now. The wrist and hand issues that plagued him last season and into the winter haven’t cropped up since spring training began, and he said he feels great.

“It’s been a frustrating first week, not only personally but team-wise,” Freeman said. “But when you’re hitting in the 3-hole and you can’t get a hit, the record shows it. I understand, I get it. I’ve got to start hitting. So I’ve got to hit my way back into the lineup.”

His obvious frustration after those two strikeouts Wednesday contributed to manager Fredi Gonzalez’s decision to rest him Thursday, despite the fact the Braves were facing Stephen Strasburg, against whom Freeman was 12-for-31 (.387) with three homers and six walks.

“You watch the body language, watch the face, and even though I’ve seen him swing and get a couple of good at-bats, I felt like it was time,” Gonzalez said. “A day game after a night game, he’s scuffling, (facing) a guy that’s got velocity (Strasburg). You do it today or you do it tomorrow, with the lefty (Marlins pitcher Wei-Yin Chin in Friday’s series opener at Miami). But I feel like he can handle left-handed pitching, and if you’re going to do it tomorrow who do you play at first, Kelly Johnson? That weighed into it also.”

The left-handed-hitting Johnson was at first base Thursday and batted cleanup with Strasburg pitching.

“But I think the biggest thing was giving Freeman just a little breather,” Gonzalez said. “I talked to him last night and said, hey, read a book, watch a movie. Do what you’ve got to do. And for the first time in five years, he goes, ‘OK.’ So it might have been the right time.”