Skip to main content

Should the Washington Nationals really sit Stephen Strasburg?

The short answer? No. I understand Washington's concern with allowing their young ace - Stephen Strasburg, who's coming off Tommy John surgery, to throw more innings than was recommended. However, who knows if/when the Nationals will again have this kind of opportunity to not only make the playoffs, but to have home-field advantage throughout (including the World Series, since the National League won the All-Star game)? This is a young club who has never made to the playoffs before. With a large lead over second-place Atlanta in the National League East, the Nationals will likely win the division with or without Strasburg playing the rest of the season. However, what about the playoffs? Are they really going to sit their ace in the playoffs? I also think it'd be a mistake to sit Strasburg in the regular season (maybe skip one start) and play him in the playoffs, because he'd likely be rusty to a certain extent.

Just look at Strasburg's numbers for the season. He's been limited to an average of just under 95 pitches per start. In those starts, he's gone 145.1 innings, allowed 119 hits, walked 43 batters while striking out 183. He's 15-5 on the season, with a 2.85 ERA, 1.11 WHIP and .224 batting average against. If he kept this up, he'd end up going 20-7 in 189.1 innings.

The Nationals are just two games up on Cincinnati for the top seed in the playoffs and home-field advantage throughout. While I can understand Washington management's perspective, in trying to make certain that their young star pitcher's career isn't a short one due to injuries, I think that sitting him for part of the regular season and especially the playoffs would be doing a disservice to the team, the city and Strasburg. I can all but guarantee you if you asked Stephen Strasburg - "Would you prefer that you sit out the end of the regular season and playoffs or to play through?" he would emphatically answer in the affirmative.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/_/id/30373/stephen-strasburg
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Another look at "The Nightly Show" with Larry Wilmore

After its first week, I gave The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore a B+ grade. While I didn't think the show appeared to be perfect by any stretch of the imagination, I also liked the Daily Show  meets Politically Incorrect vibe I got from it, and thought, with the proper adjustments, the show would indeed provide a great fill-in for The Colbert Report . In the show's succeeding weeks, however, I've been less impressed by it and think that if it doesn't make certain adjustments, it could be in jeopardy of losing many long-time viewers of the show's time slot. One major issue I think the show's had to this point is a lack of direction. It's been unable to decide whether it wants to be a comedy show with serious conversation sprinkled in or a serious show with comedy sprinkled in. It's almost as if the show's writers want to give The Nightly Show a Real Time with Bill Maher feel. The problem with that idea or format is the fact Real Time is an hour lon...
Post a Comment
Read more

My first book review of "Penetrating the Heart of Life: Ambiguous In Thought, Ambivalent In Feeling"

Well, I received my first book review on this poetry-compilation book I completed and published late last year, but have finally gotten around to marketing now. The reviewer gave it 5 out of 5 stars and said: "I enjoyed the poetic journey the writer has taken me on. From darkest days and hopeful optimism to the conclusion of hope realized. The visual images that the poem titled "Room Temperature" elicits, made me think of the song, "Horse With No Name" sung by the band America. In a similar manner, another poem – "Deafening Sigh-lence" reminded me a great deal of Simon & Garfunkel’s song, "The Sound of Silence". There are so many poems in this book that I related to, that I felt a connection to the author and felt that we were traveling on this journey together." http://www.lulu.com/shop/craig-rozniecki/penetrating-the-heart-of-life-ambiguous-in-thought-ambivalent-in-feeling/paperback/product-18677501.html
Post a Comment
Read more

Book Ranking Update

Three of my four books are now in the top 100,000, including one of the new two: "The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck (censored version)" (2011) - 149,246 "The Kind-Hearted Smarta*s (uncensored version)" (2011) - 96,347 "Seasons Come, People Grow: A Poetic Journey" (2006) - 57,336 "The Serious Scale of Sarcasm: More Balanced Than a Drunken High-Heeled Clown On a Tight Rope" (2007) - 39,666 Let's keep those numbers going in the right direction, meaning down, I suppose! (http://www.lulu.com or can be purchased elsewhere)
Post a Comment
Read more