{"id":4878,"date":"2012-10-10T10:49:47","date_gmt":"2012-10-10T14:49:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=4878"},"modified":"2012-10-10T10:49:47","modified_gmt":"2012-10-10T14:49:47","slug":"first-wish-we-had-strasburg-story-from-national-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=4878","title":{"rendered":"First “Wish we had Strasburg” story from National Media"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Strasburg sitting in the dugout during the NLDS, where he'll be for the rest of the playoffs. Photo Masn screen shot via nats enquirer blog<\/p><\/div>\n

Rant on. \u00a0I couldn’t help myself today…<\/p>\n

It was great to see that they couldn’t even wait until GAME THREE of the divisional series to post the first “Gee wish we had Stephen Strasburg<\/strong>” story. \u00a0Here’s the link<\/a>, courtesy of Ken Rosenthal<\/strong>. \u00a0I’ll bet he had this article in the can weeks ago just waiting for a slow news day to post it.<\/p>\n

Rosenthal quotes an anonymous player who doesn’t agree with the shutdown Situation, who said that “the team would be up 2-0″ if they had Strasburg.” \u00a0 Such a gutless reporting technique; notice there was nothing other than a passing mention that there are clubhouse guys who agree with the shutdown. \u00a0Just cherry-picking opinions (of which there are dozens in a clubhouse) until he found one that enabled him to write the story he wanted to write.<\/p>\n

He talks about how the Braves “handled” Kris Medlen<\/strong> so that he was still pitching in the post-season. \u00a0There’s no way Medlen-to-Strasburg comparisons are correct. \u00a0Medlen was absolutely not in the starting rotation discussion in Atlanta, and if he was he was 8th or 9th in line. \u00a0And there’s no way that Medlen was anything other than found gold to the Braves in terms of how good a starter he would turn out to be. \u00a0And there’s nobody who can tell me any differently. \u00a0Lastly, do you think perhaps the Braves would rather have used Medlen from the start of the season, had they known how dominant he’d be?? \u00a0Do you think they would have finished in 2nd place in this division had they had Medlen all season? \u00a0Because last time I checked, the Braves lost their one-and-done WITH MEDLEN ANYWAY and are playing golf while the Nats are sitting pretty in the divisional series.<\/p>\n

Nobody ever mentions this, but Strasburg was mediocre down the stretch. \u00a0He had a 4.14 ERA in his last 10 starts<\/a>, a 4.50 ERA in his last handful of games, alternating between excellent and awful. \u00a0 You could argue “arbitrary endpoints” but to me it sounds like a guy running out of gas, no? \u00a0Who is to say that the team wouldn’t have recognized that he was running on fumes anyway, and shut him down at the time they did regardless of an innings limit? \u00a0Why does nobody talk about this fact? \u00a0That’s because the National media narrative w\/r\/t Strasburg is LAZY. \u00a0Regurgitate the same stories, talk about the same platitudes of there being “no proof that shutting him down isn’t the best thing to do.”<\/p>\n

Here’s my analogy; if \u00a0you had heart surgery and your cardiologist only told you to pitch 160 innings the next year, you’d do it and not complain about it right? \u00a0Well Strasburg’s ARM SURGEON advised the team on this limit after having ARM SURGERY, and the team followed it. \u00a0I don’t think we’d be hearing all these back seat pundits talking about how the Nats are idiots for resting a guy if it was his heart that was cut and not his elbow. \u00a0To say nothing of the fact that he’s young (24), under team control for at least four more years\u00a0, and the team isn’t exactly looking like a one-year wonder right now, fielding the 3rd youngest pitching squad and the youngest hitting squad in the major leagues. \u00a0 Every core player and pitcher is locked up or under team control for at least three-four years. \u00a0There’s NO reason to think that this team won’t be contending for years to come, irrespective of what any other team in the division does.<\/p>\n

The Nats got a split in St. Louis. \u00a0That’s the best they could hope for against a dangerous opponent. \u00a0Wainwright <\/strong>isn’t going to strike out 2 batters an inning every time he goes out. \u00a0The Nats BLASTED Lohse <\/strong>this season. \u00a0Carpenter <\/strong>has what, three starts this year? \u00a0And the last time Jackson <\/strong>pitched against St. Louis at home, he went 8 shutout innings. \u00a0There’s more to this series than just Strasburg and St. Louis; the National media should try covering the Nationals for a change.<\/p>\n

*sigh*. \u00a0So sick of hearing about Strasburg. \u00a0Can’t we talk about the Nats?! \u00a0They did have the best record in baseball after all.<\/p>\n

\/Rant off. \u00a0Stepping down from sandbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rant on. \u00a0I couldn’t help myself today… It was great to see that they couldn’t even wait until GAME THREE of the divisional series to post the first “Gee wish we had Stephen Strasburg” story. \u00a0Here’s the link, courtesy of Ken Rosenthal. \u00a0I’ll bet he had this article in the can weeks ago just waiting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[346,224,253,312,970,231,38],"class_list":["post-4878","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","category-natsgeneral","tag-adam-wainwright","tag-chris-carpenter","tag-edwin-jackson","tag-ken-rosenthal","tag-kris-medlen","tag-kyle-lohse","tag-stephen-strasburg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4878","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4878"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4878\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4881,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4878\/revisions\/4881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4878"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4878"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4878"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}