Strasburg won’t sweat bad outing
A few minutes after allowing six runs over two innings in his second Grapefruit League start Wednesday, Stephen Strasburg didn’t sulk. He wasn’t angry. Instead, he was upbeat, because he evaluates his spring-training outings differently than the ones that count. What transpired against the St. Louis Cardinals at Roger Dean Stadium wasn’t alarming to him, regardless of what the box score for the Nationals’ 9-3 loss indicated.
“I’m just trying to think about the big picture, and in my head I’m trying to go out there and work on certain things,” Strasburg said.
Strasburg went on to explain that he would’ve pitched the Cardinals differently had the game mattered once he realized they were jumping on the first fastball near the strike zone as they constantly did from the outset. Of the nine batters Strasburg faced in the first inning, four put the first pitch in play. The first was Aledmys Diaz, who doubled to each gap in the first and second frames.
“The first one was poorly executed,” Strasburg said. “And the second one was 0-2, I asked (catcher Pedro Severino) if I executed because I thought I did and he went out and got it. Tip your cap.”
But Strasburg wasn’t himself. He threw 48 pitches and half were balls, illustrating his command wasn’t as crisp as it was in his first outing and preventing him from pitching another inning as planned. In all, Strasburg allowed seven hits, walked one and struck out another.
As he did in his first outing since tearing a tendon in his elbow last September, when he threw two scoreless innings against a B-list Cardinals lineup on Friday, Strasburg pitched exclusively from the stretch. The stadium radar gun indicated Strasburg touched 96 mph on a few pitches. He said the feedback from team officials with radar guns in the stands confirmed his velocity wasn’t hindered.
“I was maintaining (the stuff ),” Strasburg said. “I’m not going to jump ship after a crazy outing like this. I think it’s going to help me in the long run, but I’m just going to keep working at it. Who knows? Maybe I’ll do it enough times and be comfortable with it that it’ll help me out of the windup in the future. So I’m just not shutting that door, either.”
Manager Dusty Baker acknowledged it was strange to watch Strasburg get hit the way he did, but he also said he didn’t make much out of it because Strasburg told him he felt “great” and a few decades of experience have taught him to avoid snap judgments.
“I’ve seen the best get whacked around a bit in spring training,” Baker said. “I played with Don Sutton and Rick Reuschel and guys like that and they usually get whacked around in spring training when they face these young hitters that they really don’t know. They were hitting the first fastball they get to. There were a couple bloopers in there and there were some hard-hit balls. It was a rough day.”
The next time Strasburg takes the mound, he’ll be looking to build on his first two starts and the results will remain secondary.
“I think all in all, I’ve just got to take it with a grain of salt,” Strasburg said. “It wasn’t the outcome I was looking for, but I felt good out there.”
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