Don’t know how it will end up, but the evening’s certainly starting out well. Nats up 8-1, Braves down 2-0, Rays beating the Yanks 5-2, and O’s up 7-0. This evening could easily end with the Nats up by 7.5, and the Yankees and Orioles tied, with the Rays just 1.5 back.
That would be quite sweet.
Just keep it close and then sweep SF in the next two series and the Division title is ours!
Gotta keep hope alive.
What medical evidence have the Nats training staff/doctors provided publicly that says that “Strasbourg must be shut down OR ELSE!”?
That’s not how it works. They have never asserted there will be a disaster if he pitches 180 innings, and they don’t need to provide evidence because he’s their player. There is evidence that if you can cause serious problems if you increase a young pitcher’s workload by a significant amount from season to season, and Strasburg already had Tommy John surgery a year ago. The Nats have said they’re not going to let him pitch too much because they don’t want to take a risk with his longer-term health. I don’t know if that means he won’t pitch even if they make the playoffs, and I am not sure what I think of that decision. I may try to get tickets to his “last” start against the Mets next week. Even if this is the right management strategy I’m inclined to think his throwing motion means his arm is going to melt sooner or later. If so I guess we’ll be treated to years of backbiting and people saying they should’ve shut him down at 160 innings instead of 180 or whatever the final total is.
Hell, if we’re so concerned about his arm, why not sit him down NOW?
We’re 7.5 games up on the Braves with 27 to go. We’re gonna win this thing, with or without him; two Strasburg starts more or less aren’t going to decide the race. If we’re going to the postseason without him, let’s put Lannan in Strasburg’s spot in the rotation this week, and let the club have a bit more time to get used to doing it without Strasburg, since that’s how they’ll have to do it in the playoffs.
I’m in the “Mike Rizzo can do no wrong camp.” He is doing what he said he was going to do since at least spring training and he’s explained why he is doing it the way he is. There was a good piece over at Nats Insider on why a lot of (but not all, obviously) DC fans seem to be taking this better than people from outside of the area: http://www.natsinsider.com/2012/08/beltway-baseball-82012.html
ETA: I’m really sick of people from outside of baseball chiming in on Stras’ shutdown. Do I really care what some old football player thinks? How about Desmond Tutu and the Aflac Duck, what are their thoughts?
“We have to protect our investment. He also is a big draw for the fans.”
Same deal. They’ve invested money in him and they expect him to bring them a lot of money in the future, and they don’t want to risk his health now. They have a very good pitching staff without him.
I’m pretty sure the Strasburg shutdown is unprecedented in the world of professional team sports. Never heard of it in my lifetime. A perfectly healthy player on a playoff-bound team being told he cannot play because there’s some chance of him getting injured.
I used to subscribe to Baseball Prospectus and they had a stat called “Pitcher Abuse Points,” primarily a factor of pitch count. Anybody know how Strasburg rates in that system this year?
That site is also where I first heard of the +40 IP rule, where a pitcher’s risk of injury supposedly goes up if they pitch more than 40 IP over the previous year. Will Carroll (formerly of BP) has made a successful career analyzing sports injuries and might be one of the loudest mouths behind all of this. (aside: He also wrote an article series about Matsuzaka’s semi-mythical “gyroball,” and we’ve seen how successful that guy has been.)
The bottom line is always $$$$$$$$, but were I a Nats fan, I’d trade the rest of Strasburg’s career for their legitimate shot at a title this year.
I’m not sure about that. But the idea of tightly managing the innings of a young pitcher - particularly one who missed last year after major surgery - isn’t new. Tom Verducci details several other examples in this piece, although he notes that you don’t have to manage a pitcher’s innings by shutting him down. It’s more of a negative example than a positive one in that the list focuses on pitchers who became less effective after throwing a lot of innings.
I don’t know how I’d handle this because the future is never certain, but put that way, it doesn’t sound like a smart decision. They’re a young team that didn’t expect to be this good this soon and they should be good for a long time. Jeopardizing all of that for one playoff run is pretty dodgy.
Can’t say, but they’ve pulled him with between 90 and 105 pitches in the games where I’ve been paying attention.
Don’t know about Tutu, but I think the AFLAC duck wants higher premiums to insure his arm if they keep pitching him. 
Yeah, they’ve got good pitching without him for sure. If they didn’t they wouldn’t be where they are right now.
Regarding the Nats, my hopes for 2012 were that we would finish somewhere over .500 with at least a shot at a wild card slot. What Rizzo has done in a very short period has been amazing, I’ve been going to games since they first came to town and I remember being able to pretty much sit wherever you wanted to because there were so few fans in the stands. If Rizzo says this is what needs to be done, then that’s good enough for me.
A key qualifier in my OP was, “on a playoff-bound team.” It’s the main reason anyone is talking about this. Only one of Verducci’s examples was actually shut down, and none of them were in playoff contention. Jaime Garcia was shut down on 9/13, and as he said, “nobody noticed because St. Louis stood 7½ games out of a wild card spot.”
Without having more real info on his arm, I have no problem with the Nats being very careful with a young, potential superstar, coming off Tommy John surgery. It’s quite possible they’re being way too conservative here (probably more conservative than I would be), but I certainly can’t blame them.
Mariners notched win number 67 tonight vs. the Red Sox, matching last year’s win total with a month left to play. Things are looking up 
I actually felt bad for the Cubs last night, but how great was Gio? All this talk about Stras in the national press misses the fact that DC has a great pitching staff beyond Stras with Gio, Zimm, et al.
The Giants have dropped 2 since I made the hubris-laden post about their recent record. I obviously need to make an offering to the baseball gods and ask their forgiveness.
Gio’s done a hell of a job for us all season. And having Zimm, Jackson, and Detwiler as 3-4-5 starters would be a step up for most teams. But I’m a little less comfortable with them as 2-3-4 starters in the playoffs, though, Detwiler especially.
We’ll see how it goes, though. I’m pretty confident that we can beat the Braves, Giants, or whoever we face in the first round, but I sure wish the plan was to bring Strasburg back for the NLCS and the Series. I really wish we were ready to throw our best stuff at the Reds.