We really don't care that it was against the Pittsburgh Pirates, who some may call a sub-par team. No disrespect intended, of course. Stephen Strasburg's big league debut impressed the crap out of us.
The 21-year-old righty allowed just two runs on four hits, including a shot by Delwyn Young in the fourth, Tuesday evening at Nationals Park. The highlight? He struck out an incredible 14 batters and walked no one through 94 pitches. In fact, the young phenom fanned every single Pirates batter at least once, including the final seven he faced.
Thanks to back-to-back jacks by Adam Dunn and Josh Willingham, Strasburg was able to return to the mound for the top of the seventh, in which he struck out the side to polish off his first day and first victory in a Washington Nationals uniform.
The hype has officially been met and exceeded.
P.S. Here's Batting Stance Guy's impersonation of Strasburg's first big league at bat...
8 comments:
AMAZING. Yes, even against the Ass Pirates.
It was a 2-run shot for Delwyn Young.
FOURTEEN K's. FOURTEEN.
I was SO excited for his debut. I'm, like, a Nationals fan now.
Absolutely amazing night. Go Nats!
Seriously. The kid's a stud. What a night!
I would like to play Devil's Advocate for one moment.
This was against the Pirates. The PIRATES. One of the worst teams in MLB right now. Yes, Strasburg did very well in his MLB debut but I would like to see how he does against teams like the Braves, the Reds, the Cards, and the padres before I hop on the bandwagon.
I'll tell you what would be amazing: seeing Strasburg pitch against the Rockies while the Rockies send Ubaldo Jimenez to the mound. Strasburg's already got so much hype around him he's guaranteed to draw sellout crowds no matter where the Nats are playing!
The real reason I'm not on the bandwagon is because I don't want Strasburg to be a bust. I don't want him to struggle at the MLB level. I don't want to see people express disappointment in him if he doesn't live up to the hype. I don't want him to be plagued by injuries a la Mark Prior. I want him to have a long and prosperous career.
Just trying to be a realist.
Um, shannon...The Padres offense is like 12th (out of 16) in runs for the NL. But, yeah...The Pirates are 16th. Good time to break the kid into the majors...
Regardless of who he was pitching against, 14 strikeouts in just seven innings is pretty damn good. We'll see how he does against the Indians this week... who aren't much better than the Pirates, I guess.
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