- Two very wealthy men.
Even if you don’t like baseball you know about Stephen Strasburg.
He’s the biggest baseball story in the league. ESPN, Sports Illustrated and Yahoo baseball writers have been salivating for an opportunity to write about his debut. Conversely, some guy in every fantasy baseball league has been waiting a long time for a return on his pick.
This is Stephen Strasburg. He’s already a bigger star than half the league and the Washington National hadn’t even made his first MLB start until this evening against the woeful Pittsburgh Pirates.
June 8, 2010. Remember this day. Strasburg wins his debut and dazzles along the way.
Strasburg’s start was carried by the MLB Network. During the game, announcers continually dropped names like Juan Marichal, Roger Clemens, Bob Gibson and Bob Feller. Four of those guys have a bust in Cooperstown. The other, Clemens, has a bronze needle plaque waiting for him in the soon to be built steroid wing.
Strasburg walked out to the mound in front of a rowdy crowd and a national television audience, and proceeded to live up to the hype. Through six innings his line looked like this: 4 hits, 2 earned runs and 11 strikeouts. The phenom had yet to walk a batter. He had only thrown 81 pitches by this point but it appeared his evening would be over. The recent trend in baseball is that a team is foolish to allow their pitcher to go over 100 pitches. It’s even more of a sin if the pitcher is young like Strasburg.
The reason like all things comes down to money. The Washington Nationals have to protect their investment. They’ve spent a fortune on Strasburg. Now they have to treat him like a shiny new car and leave him in the garage if there’s a 10 percent chance of rain.
The announcers debated during the bottom of the sixth inning if Strasburg should return for the seventh. He was only at 81 pitches. Expect a continuation of this debate during everyone one of his starts for the next few years. Strasburg might as well mean pitch count.
Pitchers don’t like pitch limits or pitch counts. I know from experience that once the adrenaline gets going every pitcher thinks they’ve got “at least one more batter in them.”The Nationals let Strasburg come out for the seventh and he had three more hitters in him. He struck out all three Pirates finishing the night with 14 strikeouts and amazingly still below the dreaded 100 pitch mark.
The pitcher dominated the Pirates by keeping them off-balance. He set up his devastating curve ball by pounding the strike zone with a upper 90 mph fastball. He even pulled the string on several hitters using a mid 80 mph change up. The pitch selection was nothing short of fantastic.
Strasburg’s only trouble came in the fourth inning with two on and none out when he allowed back-to-back singles. Strasbug didn’t unravel, getting Garrett Jones to ground into a double play. He would allow his only runs when Pirate outfielder Delwyn Young used a huge uppercut swing to send a low changeup over the right field wall.
His debut will only increase the hype. The win and the dominating style in which he achieved it will be talked about all the way up until he throws his first pitch in Cleveland on Sunday. Additionally, the Pirates are not to be mistaken for the New York Yankees but they still are considered be a MLB team, employing MLB caliber hitters like Andrew McCutchen and Ryan Doumit.
Strasburg will hold the advantage for a long time. He’s the new guy. Batters will have to adjust and there isn’t a lot of video for people to use to study his arsenal.
The early indication is Strasburg looks every bit the ace he was billed to be when he was drafted last June. He will be a huge draw both at home and on the road. His face will be plastered on every magazine and newspaper in the country. He might be playing for a team that falls out of the race by the middle of July but the media throng will still be huge.
The summer of 2010 might very easily become the Summer of Strasburg.
