The “10th day of Strasmas” was today, as wonderkid took the mound against the Arizona Diamondbacks to finish off a quick homestand. Coincidentally, the Nats have now “overtaken” the Astros for the 8th draft pick, but it’ll be hard to maintain this pace. He didn’t look bad but he didn’t look that good either.
Strasburg went 5 innings, gave up 5 hits, 7ks, 0 walks, 3 runs but only one earned and was lifted in-between innings sitting on 85 pitches. The two unearned runs were due to the 3-base error Strasburg himself committed by letting a throw to first sail down the RF line, scoring a guy from 1st and putting that runner on 3rd with one out (scored on the next pitch by a routine flyball).
Most of the hits were weaker. Reynolds had a seeing eye single through the middle, Montero had a jammed soft flyball into center, and Drew hit another relatively innocuous ball up the middle. Chris Young turned on a fastball pretty well, hitting a sharp line drive into left but got stranded.
The best hit ball of the night was LaRoche, who has been incredibly hot lately, absolutely unloading on a 2-0 fastball that Strasburg left up and over the plate. LaRoche’s ball was the kind of ball you swing through and don’t even feel the contact on the bat. Definitely a mistake to a guy who made him pay.
Strasburg’s first pitch registered 101 on the TV gun (impressive considering that normally he eases into it). He had good velocity most of the night, he had control of his curve, and he threw his change up well. All in all, an unlucky error cost him 2 runs to blemish an otherwise pretty good line. I think the Nats are babying him a little bit and should have let him pitch the 6th. If he gets to 105 pitches, it isn’t the end of the world. I’d rather see the guy stretched out to 105 than yank him at 85. There was no pressing pinch hitter need in the bottom of the 5th either.
Editor’s Update: Apparently Strasburg was lifted mostly in part due to the 10 minute delay caused by Arizona law protesters who took to the field. Strasburg cooled off too much as a result and Riggleman didn’t want to risk it.
As far as the game goes, Willingham hit a 2 run bomb to tie it up and get Strasburg off the hook for the loss. Zimmerman absolutely killed a ball in the 6th to give the Nats the lead, and Clippard/Burnett/Storen closed it out for the win.
Bottom Line; not the greatest line for Strasburg and no W on the board, but he looked good and he only really had two hard hit balls off of him all night. Looking good.