Just a hint of Stephen Strasburg's top capacity is simply stunning

By Thomas Boswell
The Washington Post
Wednesday, June 9, 2010; D01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Washington has had more important events than Stephen Strasburg's 14-strikeout big league debut, games for enormous stakes, like a trip to a Super Bowl or battles in the NBA Finals. And the return of baseball here five years ago was the most emotionally charged night the sport has provided us so far in the new Nats era.

But this town has never had one game, one packed-house party, one continuous night-long celebration of possibility, one obliterate-all-expectations career launch that could even remotely approach the electric future that Strasburg's 5-2 victory instantly foretold.

Before Tuesday night, the 21-year-old rookie's first game was a must-attend event or, at least, a must watch TV moment. His talent and the unprecedented hype surrounding his arrival demanded it. Now, hard to believe, that's utterly changed. The anticipation, if anything, will go even higher. After allowing no walks, two runs and four hits in seven innings, while coming within one whiff of Karl Spooner's all-time strikeout record in a big-league debut, what on earth comes next?

After the destruction the Nationals rookie wreaked on the Pittsburgh Pirates lineup, every one of his games now falls into that can't-miss category. The excitement that started two hours before the game, then extended through warm-ups with fans craning over the Nats bullpen to smell the Strasburg smoke, to the standing-room-only crowd's curtain call for the town's new star, will be recreated with vast variation many a time.

In fact, with luck, once every five days throughout the baseball season for many years to come.

"We were having a lot of fun in the bullpen," said rookie reliever Drew Storen as his friend struck out six of the first nine hitters he faced, then finished his 94-pitch effort with a star-is-officially-anointed crescendo of eight strikeouts in the last 10 hitters. "We had a TV, so we saw replays, too. It was kind of an unfair laughing reaction to some of the swings."

After some early wildness, Strasburg found command of his fastball and, having tortured the Bucs by throwing almost every curveball of the game for a strike, simply pounded every corner of the strike zone to close like Secretariat, fanning the last seven Buc hitters in a row. That's K-K-K-K-K-K-K to end his night with a W.

"Even the players on the other team were coming up saying to me, 'This guy is unbelievable,' " said Hall-of-Fame-bound catcher Iván Rodríguez. "Everybody was impressed with the way he attacked, got ahead, used all four pitches."

After just one night among us, it's clear that, like only a couple of dozen pitchers with names like Koufax, Ryan and Clemens, any Strasburg start might make history. Will his whole career approach theirs? Will he be durable and consistent? Those hardball questions can't be answered. But now we have a hint of Strasburg's maximum capacity, and it is stunning.

As a result, no other Nats game has remotely approached the energy level and constant noise of this one. The game's great strikeout artists, and the potential no-hit pitchers have always roused crowds, joining the cognoscenti and the casual fan in the shared bliss of "Strike one, strike two, strike three!"

"I haven't played before a crowd like that before," said left fielder Josh Willingham who, along with Ryan Zimmerman and Adam Dunn (upper deck), homered to give fans a best-of-Nats highlight film. "The crowd wasn't just yelling for a strikeout. They were yelling on almost every pitch. An absolutely really cool game to be a part of."

For fans, entertainment choices are suddenly redefined. When does Strasburg pitch next? What excuse suffices to miss him? When he's allowed to throw 100 or 110 pitches, like normal folk, what happens next?

"I hope that I am faced with some tough decisions on when to take him out of games," said Manager Jim Riggleman on Sunday. "I hope there'll be times when fans say, 'Should Jim have taken him out?' because that will mean he's having some great games."

After one start, that doubt is removed. There are shutouts, high-strikeout games and, almost certainly, no-hitters ahead for this man. Not that he will have a clear memory of them.

"I remember the first pitch -- a ball inside. Everything else is just a blur. I didn't even know what inning it was at one point," said Strasburg, who used no scouting report, but will next time. "It's like getting married. You want to remember everything. But once it's done, you can't remember a single thing."

Don't worry, everybody else can.

If it hadn't been for the inconvenience of that artificial but wise pitch-count ("he probably could have throw 195 pitches tonight," said Riggleman), Strasburg would have cut up Spooner's record with his knifing curveball and pitchfork of a fastball that lit the scoreboard with a "100" reading several times.

So what if Strasburg never struck out more than nine men in a game in the minors and said that, as a pro, he wanted pitch-saving ground balls, not whiffs. Remember his days at San Diego State and the 23-strikeout game we all wore out on YouTube? "It felt like that game and the no-hitter [in college]," said Strasburg. "Early, I was a little bit all over the place. . . . But as the game went on, the adrenalin kicked in and everything was working."

On 93 of his 94 pitches, Strasburg allowed only three singles and walked no one -- a 14-0 ratio. Except for one pitch, Strasburg might have pitched shutout ball and had one of the highest "game scores" in the history of all debuts as computed by baseball-reference.com. He wouldn't have rivaled Juan Marichal's 12-strikeout, one-hit shutout -- the top-rated game ever -- but he'd have been within sight of anybody else, held back from the top by the contemporary aversion to complete games.

But he didn't. And that actually brought extra drama to the night. His worst pitch was still a good one -- a knee-high change-up. But this is the big leagues and in the Show, a change-up, if anticipated, can be smacked into the first row of the right-centerfield bleachers for a two-out, two-run home run.

And that's just what Delwyn Young did in the fourth inning.

Perhaps mildly annoyed, Strasburg retired the last 10 hitters in order. Crank up the myth machine. Or at least the silver Elvis wig and a double-serving of shaving-cream pie in the face.

From beginning to end, this evening's entertainment was guilty of false advertising. On this perfect night, Strasburg was not introduced to the major leagues, as so many said. Instead, the big leagues were introduced to Strasburg.

It was a magnificent mismatch.


Stephen Strasburg turns romance to reality for one magic evening

By Mike Wise
The Washington Post
Wednesday, June 9, 2010; D05
http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Unless you had religiously followed him to the minor-league towns of Harrisburg and Syracuse -- unless you had seen footage from his college games at San Diego State -- the young pitcher with the howitzer right arm was still very much myth, something to be believed rather than broken down on celluloid.

Because baseball at its sublime best can still be a game of the imagination -- AM radio making you see an inside-the-park home run, excited tales of a kid who could throw more than 100 mph tumbling from an old scout's lips -- Stephen Strasburg, the person, did not take the mound two weeks before his 22nd birthday last night as much as Stephen Strasburg, folk hero with a forkball did.

Hardly interviewed before his first major league start, heard about more than seen in person, he pretty much walked out of a Ken Burns documentary or a Robert Redford screenplay.

"He does have this Roy Hobbs-like quality to him," said, yes, Ken Burns, the great chronicler of American history who took in the game Tuesday night at Nationals Park. "For those of us who haven't seen him, there's so much we take on faith."

Fourteen strikeouts later, on the most pristine night in Southeast Washington imaginable, believe.

Believe big.

Believe in everything you're hearing or they're saying about Strasburg, who incredibly surpassed expectations we almost felt guilty about heaping on him.

Heck, when they tell you he struck out "The Whammer" three weeks ago at a county fair while Robert Duvall called strikes in a meadow, believe that too.

Because when that same kid takes the mound at 7:06 p.m. and pitches almost flawlessly through seven innings -- moving the ball, changing speeds, mastering the moment -- it's not a myth anymore. It's the future.

"It's not just good, it's amazing what I see from him," Liván Hernández said, surveying Strasburg sitting by his cubicle in the Nationals' clubhouse late Tuesday night. "I might never see a pitcher that young pitch like that in my life in his first game."

He froze hitters. He discombobulated Lastings Milledge with a curveball that went sideways, straight and then sideways again.

Fourteen strikeouts is one shy of any kid in major-league history making his debut. It's two more than the electronic 'K' line at Nationals Park could display. "I had no idea it only went to 12 strikeouts," Stan Kasten, the Nationals team president, said after the "It never occurred to me that we needed more."

And the noise, growing in decibels as each batter was sent back to the dugout.

"Let's go Strasburg! Let's go Strasburg!"

They chanted his name as he reared and fired that last strike and fanned the Pittsburgh side in the seventh, a 95 mph, high, blazing heater that brought 40,315 to their feet.

"I was able to talk to John Smoltz the other night, and he just reminded me to soak it all in," Strasburg said. "I went out earlier to stretch and really looked at everything around, looked at the fans. It's just a great experience, but once they said 'play ball,' it was go time."

WASHINGTON - JUNE 08: Stephen Strasburg #37 of the Washington Nationals talks with Ivan Rodriguez #7 after leaving the game in the seventh inning against the Pittsburgh Pirates at Nationals Park on June 8, 2010 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Greg Fiume/Getty Images)

When he trudged onto that field more than a half hour before his first start, he had this almost affected jocular walk, cowboy-like, as if he had been roping cattle and breaking stallions in the bullpen. Then came those bullets sailing toward home plate, two-seamers and four-seamers and that baffling curveball.

This is the most majestic part of a young phenom making a city stand and roar -- the beginning.

We love our agents of hope and change in this town, especially the young ones. John Wall will soon see. Bryce Harper, too.

Of course the romance gradually turns to reality. In sports and life, myth gives way to man. And we soon lump the messiahs in with the establishment -- Hello, Mr. President -- and the search for the next chosen one begins anew.

But the hope here is that comes way down the road for the rookie right-hander who sent everyone home happy and in awe on Tuesday night. That he paused for a moment of reflection and gratitude before the first pitch, just like John Smoltz told him to, says everything.

Nice, no? Strasburg took the time for at least one glance into the stands to see all the red, to see the euphoric faces from different generations filled with hope and possibility looking back at him.

It was the first night, the best night, and nothing that follows, good or bad, can take that away from him and the people who chanted his name.

Photo Credits: Getty Images