Strasburg gets Nats’ opening day start

Stephen Strasburg will start for the Nationals on opening day, manager Dusty Baker said Sunday morning.

Baker had been reluctant to divulge the Nationals’ plans for their rotation to open the season, but math and common sense had given away the secret. Strasburg is scheduled to make his next start Wednesday afternoon. Five days from then is April 3, the day the Marlins and Nationals open their seasons at Nationals Park.

“I know you guys can count,” Baker said. “Yeah, he’s slated to start opening day.”

Baker made offifficial what Max Scherzer’s troubled knuckle made likely six weeks ago. Scherzer’s injury trouble, now seemingly resolved, forced the reigning Cy Young Award winner to race the calendar. While he won by most measures — namely the fact that he is planning not to miss a turn through the rotation — he fell a few days short of being ready to start the fifirst game of the season.

Scherzer started the past t wo opening days for the Nationals. The plan, at least as Baker outlined it this week, is for Scherzer to start the third game. So the Nationals settled on Strasburg, who carried an undefeated record through the all-star break last season and is hardly a consolation prize.

“Hey, that’s like having two number ones,” Baker said. “Opening day is opening day. There’s nothing better. And then you hope that day number two and number three is not a drop-offff in attendance and excitement.”

Strasburg has done this before, from 2012 to 2014. He has a 2.25 ERA in those three starts, all of which lasted at least six innings, during which he struck out nearly a batter an inning. The Nationals won all three of those games, though Strasburg got credit for just one of them.

— For full coverage of the Nationals, go to washingtonpost.com/sports.