(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)
With 99 innings pitched so far this season, Stephen Strasburg is well on his way to hitting the inning limit the Nationals set for him at the beginning of the season. Considering the pace at which he’s been playing so far, he’ll probably reach that benchmark some time in early September, just as the Nationals—assuming they’re still in contention—begin their final push to make the playoffs for the first time since arriving in D.C.
But Strasburg doesn’t sound that ready to relinquish is spot in the Nationals’ stellar starting rotation, saying in a SiriusXM interview before last night’s All-Star Game that he doesn’t plan on stepping off the mound under his own volition.
“Well, they’re gonna have to rip the ball out of my hands, that’s all I can say,” Strasburg told SiriusXM’s Jim Bowden, according to D.C. Sports Bog.
Strasburg, who came back late last season after missing 14 months to reconstructive arm surgery, might not have a say in things, though. Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo has repeated all season his insistence that Strasburg is good for 160 innings—maybe 170—and not one pitch more.
“We know what’s right for us. And we have the guts to stick with it,” Rizzo told the Post’s Thomas Boswell for a column in which Boz vehemently defended the pitch ceiling imposed on Strasburg.
But what if the Nationals hold on to their National League-leading record and march into the playoffs? Bowden said on his radio program that were he in charge, Strasburg wouldn’t sit out the postseason, and perhaps not even those last few weeks of the regular schedule. After all, the Nats have a serious shot at getting into the playoffs, so why blow it?
Washingtonian’s Brett Haber agrees, noting that come September, it’ll have been a full year since Strasburg returned from his career-opening Tommy John surgery. “It’s time to take the training wheels off,” Haber wrote.
We agree. He’s not a rookie anymore, he’s leading the National League with 128 strikeouts and has an earned run average of 2.82. Besides, what good is a pitcher if you have to pry a the ball from his cold, dead hands?
