Just Shut Down Strasburg, Please
You may have heard via any one of a number of hysterical media outlets that Stephen Strasburg had to leave Saturday's game with a strained forearm. Management is non-committal (rightfully so in the absence of MRI results) about Strasburg's prospects for the rest of the season, but let's just throw this out there: at this point, the only reason to send Strasburg to the hill the rest of the season is to sell tickets. The team shouldn't be faulted for that (just ask the Pirates), and any player on the payroll should rightfully be expected to get out on the field when their number is called.
But Strasburg isn't just any player, and the Nats' treatment of his development yields an astounding number of metaphors. He's like a delicate flower that only responds to 3 hours and 29 minutes of sunlight and needs watering precisely every 47 hours. He's like the new car that you can't drive faster than 55 miles per hour for the first 5,000 miles. More realistically, he's an investment. The goal for this year was to put him on the big stage and get some experience, right? He has shown that, despite a couple dips in performance, he can succeed both at home and on the road in front of larger-than-normal crowds. There's nothing to gain by him pitching in games that don't matter if the hope is that he'll anchor the rotation next year. Nothing. This team isn't making a run at the Wild Card, and further injury brings about the possibility of a Jason Marquis-anchored rotation in 2011. (Your nightmares and/or panic attacks may start now if they haven't already.) If the guy turns out to be the next injury-prone incarnation of Mark Prior as the years go by, then yeah, that sucks. But at least Prior pitched in games that mattered before his body (and Dusty Baker) let him down.
On Deck: The Nats welcome the Cubs to D.C. for a three-game tilt. The series is notable in that it's the Cubs' first after manager Lou Piniella's retirement yesterday. Piniella is a modern legend, winning two World Series titles as a player with the Yankees, managing underdog Cincinnati to victory over the Bash Brothers in the 1990 World Series, and leading Seattle to an incredible 116 wins in 2001. The 2009 and 2010 seasons haven't been kind, though, and the exceedingly lofty expectations placed on the Cubs as recently as last year make the struggles that much tougher to take. Their defense is the worst in the league, having overtaken the Nats for most errors and worst fielding percentage in the majors. Chicago pitching has also been a disappointment, giving up the sixth-most runs in the majors and hovering near the bottom of the league in number of save opportunities.
The team is now building for the future, having traded pitcher Ted Lilly to the Dodgers in July and first-baseman Derrek Lee, a cornerstone for the Cubs going back to 2004, to Atlanta last week. The Nats should take advantage of the recent upheaval to win two of three, with Livan Hernandez beating underwhelming rookie Casey Coleman tonight and the mystifyingly good John Lannan beating the always-erratic Carlos Zambrano tomorrow night. Heck, maybe even Marquis can get in on the fun and get his first win of the season, but he has a decidedly tougher matchup against Ryan Dempster on Thursday. The Nats took two of three from the Cubs at Wrigley in late April, so there's no reason to think that they can't repeat the performance at home.