Not sure what else there is to say about Stephen Strasburg at this point. The 21-year-old pitched 6 1/3 innings in a 5-1 win at Rochester on Wednesday night. He hadn’t pitched since the previous Thursday thanks to an extra day of rest granted by the Nats and then a rain out on Tuesday night. Watching on MASN after the Nats win over New York – much thanks to my trusty DVR – there was a bit of rust there. Strasburg fell behind more batters than he had in most of his previous seven minor-league starts and walked two. He also had to deal with two errors by his own defense. But whatever. He just bulled through without allowing a run on three Rochester hits.
Strasburg’s ability to induce ground balls at will helped him escape some jams with a pair of double plays erasing Red Wings rallies. His ground ball-to-fly ball rate is an astounding 2.60 in those eight minor-league starts so far. As a reference point, Atlanta’s Tim Hudson leads Major League Baseball right now with a 1.89 rate. On Wednesday, Strasburg also struck out a career-high nine batters. He threw 92 pitches and 60 were for strikes (65.2%).
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He is now 3-0 for Triple-A Syracuse and hasn’t allowed a run in 18 1/3 AAA innings. Overall, when his numbers are combined with those from Double-A Harrisburg, Strasburg has a 0.89 ERA in 40 1/3 innings. His strikeout-to-walk ratio is 4.9/1. Yes, 49 strikeouts and just 10 walks. That will do. Hits? Only 17. Batting average against? A meager .123. Strasburg is on track to start May 24th against Toledo at home and again vs. Scranton/Wilkes-Barre next Saturday night, May 29th. That sets up a June 4th major-league debut against the Reds at Nationals Park if the front office wants to go that route. Otherwise, the Chiefs are at Buffalo that night. But in that case Washington would debut Strasburg on June 8 against Pittsburgh – in the middle of the MLB draft’s second day. Not sure the organization needs all that hoopla in one sitting, especially after the likely selection of another phenom – 17-year-old junior-college catcher Bryce Harper – on Monday, June 7th. Whatever the case, it’s hard to imagine that homestand not marking Strasburg’s debut. He may not dominate out of the gate in the big leagues. Few do. But he might as well start the learning curve now because minor-league hitters aren’t posing much of a problem.
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