This is the way of the world after Tommy John surgery. Stephen Strasburg was impressively efficient in his first major league start last Tuesday. He needed just 56 pitches to go five full innings. But results can change quick from one outing to the next. We saw that from Jordan Zimmermann the last two months of last season after he returned from his own elbow surgery.
On Sunday against the Houston Astros – read the deatils of an 8-2 Washington win here – Strasburg allowed just one run on 57 pitches. He gave up three hits – a bloop that ticked off Danny Espinosa’s glove in shallow right, an infield hit and solid single to Carlos Lee – walked none and struck out four. Pretty good. But Strasburg only made it three innings in large part because he struggled to put Houston batters away. The Astros fouled off 16 pitches total. Strasburg needed 31 pitches just to get through the first inning.
“I was able to get ahead of hitters [in the second and third]. There was a little command on certain pitches that I was struggling with,” Strasburg said. “At the same time they were fouling a lot of pitches off. That’s what ran my pitch count up that first inning. But if I throw pitches down in the zone more maybe those would have been ground balls instead of foul balls into the stands.”
Again, we’re using an extra high bar for Strasburg starts because of what he’s shown us in his brief big-league career. In the end, that’s still a good line for his second start back. And while the Astros are trotting out a horrific lineup at this point, there were no real hard-hit balls. Lee’s single was one. Jordan Schafer had a line drive to right that was caught with little trouble by Rick Ankiel.
Strasburg finished with two ground ball outs, three fly ball outs and the four strikeouts. He induced nine swings-and-misses and his velocity dipped briefly in the second inning. His fastball in that frame sat between 92 and 95. But he had enough juice in his last inning to whiff Jimmy Paredes with a pair of 96 mile-per-hour fastballs and the next batter, J.D. Martinez, saw one 97 mile-per-hour two-seam fastball and then another that he grounded off Strasburg’s glove and deflected to Espinosa at second base. Still, the velocity drop in the second inning didn’t go unnoticed.
“I never really watch it that much. [Pitching coach Steve] McCatty was over there like the Mother Hen he is, having a heart attack wanting to run out there,” Washington manager Davey Johnson said. “I said there’s nothing wrong with 92. And one time I think the radar gun was stuck and stayed on 92 and [Strasburg] threw another one. But he had a pretty good change up. And he looked fine. I think he agrees maybe he didn’t throw hard in the second inning because of the temperature. Little hot.”
In all, Strasburg has pitched eight innings in two starts with one earned run allowed on five hits. He has eight strikeouts and has yet to walk a batter. In 113 pitches he has thrown 79 strikes. Including his minor-league rehab starts. Strasburg is up to eight starts total with 28 1/3 innings so far. His next start is expected to be Saturday night against the Florida Marlins with an extra day of rest built in. Still, Strasburg wasn’t too excited to learn Johnson was pulling him so early on Sunday.
“He was irritated,” Johnson said. “‘Just three?’. I said ‘Yeah, just three.’ But I expected that.”
Probably for the best. The Nats sent nine batters to the plate in the bottom of the third inning – not ideal for a pitcher on a hot day as you cool off in the dugout and muscles begin to stiffen – and eventually outfielder Corey Brown was sent up to pinch hit for Strasburg.
“It’s a process. Being a year out, next year when it comes this time I know they’re going to let me go out there and work through it with six, seven innings,” Strasburg said. “It is pretty frustrating. But knowing Davey from the [2008] Olympics he’s got my best interests in mind. I trust him 100 percent. I’m going to go out there until he says I’m done.”
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