A few media types got a chance to catch up with Stephen Strasburg this afternoon. Kept it pretty short. After all “you guys kept me here until midnight. I needed some sleep,” Strasburg said.
Nats manager Jim Riggleman laid out the basic plan for Strasburg this summer. John Lannan starts tonight followed by Livan Hernandez and then Luis Atilano. J.D. Martin goes on Saturday night against the Indians – the team that drafted him. That sets up Strasburg for a June 13 start on Sunday at Cleveland – where Indians officials say the team sold 3,000 tickets on Wednesday alone in anticipation – and a June 18 game against the White Sox back at Nationals Park. Does President Obama come out for that one given his love for Chicago? Then Strasburg would go June 23 against the Royals at home and June 28 at Atlanta.
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The big news: Strasburg will start every five days until the All-Star break – not every five games. Because he has the fresher arm from pitching in the minors for two months he will give the veterans a break. Then, the Nats will give Strasburg some time off. Probably a good chunk during the All-Star break, where the team goes four days without a game. That will allow the rookie to pitch into late September, instead of shutting him down early in the month when he reaches his innings limit. He has seven down with anywhere between 90 and 100 left to him.
“What we want to do is having him pitching in late September, but that means that there’s going to be some times in there – whether it’s around the all-star break – where we give him a week where he doesn’t pitch,” Riggleman said. “He’s gong to get a total of 150 to 160 innings (minors/majors combined) and if he was to get six innings a start and he’s got 22 more starts, that’s too many and we can’t do that.”
Strasburg was pretty reserved in his comments during the dugout chat as a light rain fell and outside batting practice was canceled. Nothing new there – though he did drop a few one-liners during Tuesday’s postgame press conference. The overwhelming attention his debut generated seems bizarre to him. So he has to change his television habits a bit to stay away from his own mug.
“I used to watch ‘SportsCenter’ all the time. Now there’s just too much to watch, so I’m trying to find new channels,” Strasburg said. “When you come here every day, it can be pretty wearing at times. It’s nice to get away now and then and kind of relax and not think about baseball.”
He fielded a question or two from Hernandez, who snuck into the media scrum and grabbed a mike. There’s a reason why Livo is the most versatile Nat there is. His question even elicited a decent response from Strasburg, who couldn’t help but smile at the veteran’s antics.
“They were pretty excited for me,” Strasburg said. “My dad, it was probably the first time I saw him break into tears a little bit, so it was pretty cool to see. I was just very happy to have them out here.”
The Nats have had no internal discussions about pushing Strasburg into a bullpen role if his innings limit approaches, according to Riggleman.
“No, we want him to pitch in September, so some of that shutdown may be before September,” Riggleman said. As for these plans if the team is somehow still in a playoff race? “That would be very hard. I hope we have to make that decision. That would be tough, but we want to make sure this young man is pitching for years to come. We may be being overcautious, but we’ll err on that side.”
