Deb from Warrenton, Va -

As a Washington Nationals fan, I'm very excited about Stephen Strasburg
joining the team in early June.  It has been reported that the Nationals will
shut down Strasburg for the season after he reaches a certain number of
innings pitched.  If the Nationals are still in contention when Strasburg
reaches that limit, do you think that they will follow through with
their plans?

To answer your question…Yes, I think the Nationals will stick with their original plan for Strasburg, but there are some ways to modify it. For one, we need to look at how many innings Strasburg threw last season. He threw 109 in college, 5 in instructional league, and 19 in the Arizona Fall League for a total of 133. Now his path was a bit different since he was shut down from when his college season ended at the end of May until he signed in August. That sort of lay off is why his innings are down, since he was building his arm back up. Since this season he won’t be ‘shut down’ for a 2 1/2 month hiatus, Strasburg could probably even do more innings if the Nationals chose so. Usually you try not to add more than 25-30 innings to a pitchers workload from one season to the next. Given Strasburg’s work load last season that would pretty much peg him for 160 innings this year (give or take a few). If Strasburg makes 3 more minor league starts like has been predicted he would be right around the 50 inning mark when he comes up in early June. Which would leave just 110 major league innings.

That could get problematic since even with a 6 inning limit, Strasburg would burn through a 100 major league innings by the time Sept. rolled around. Which would obviously take Strasburg out of any playoff race (not to mention actual playoff games if the Nats made it). Now while the Nats could potentially have leeway to add 5-10 innings to that max limit, that obviously won’t make a huge difference as to when Strasburg would need to be shut down.

The Nationals would have some options to keep Strasburg as part of a playoff push and not completely blow up their innings plan for him. While it got maligned somewhat in the media and by fans, some version of the Yankees “Joba Rules” would make sense in this situation. The Joba rules named after fireballer Joba Chamberlain, were put in place for almost this exact situation (the Yankees did some things that backed themselves into a corner). Basically what they do is extend the time where a pitcher can influence games without extending his innings limit.

This is done in two main ways. First, the Nationals can skip a couple of Strasburg’s starts, which wouldn’t be a bad thing since in college he was used to pitching with extra rest. The other way the Nationals can extend Strasburg is not as often used, but it does keep Strasburg impacting games, and that is to limit him for a couple of “starts” to say between 2-4 innings. Now likely using that method the Nationals would have a set day for Strasburg to pitch, but have him come in relief (they could still start him but that is harder in the NL). Basically what the Nats would be doing would be setting it up like a spring training game where two starters share 3+ innings. The Nationals could say pair Strasburg up with Craig Stammen (another young pitcher who should watch his innings) or even possibly a healthy Ross Detwiler or Jordan Zimmermann depending how their rehabs go. Then they could pitch Stammen/Detwiler/Zimmermann for 4-5 innings, and bring Strasburg in for 3 innings. The risk there obviously is that you could bring Strasburg into situations where the game is already decided one way or another, but it would still give him regular work and limit his innings. The one thing I’d avoid as long as possible is solely working him out of the bullpen (maybe in the playoffs), but I’d much rather see him getting regular work in 3 inning stretches than just one inning here or there.

The main thing for the Nationals though is to stick to their inning limit and not add too many more innings than that 160 mark. Too many pitchers have broken down due to overuse too soon in their career. The Nationals might be a contender this year, but they have even a brighter future, so ensuring that has to be their top priority.

Whether you listened to the game on the radio, read the Strasburg live blog from the Washington Post, or watched the taped delay game on MASN (or did all three), two things were abundantly clear with Stephen Strasburg’s start. One he didn’t have his best stuff last night, a lot of pitches missed the zone, and he faced a number of 2-0 counts. The second thing that was clear was Strasburg’s worst stuff of this season was still good enough to completely shutdown the Rochester Red Wings lineup.

Strasburg’s line for the night was 6.1 innings pitched, with 9 strikeouts against 3 hits and 2 walks. Despite the Red Wings getting some solid contact and a few hits, they weren’t able to really get to Strasburg. Even without his best stuff, Strasburg was able to keep Rochester off the score board, which he has done in all three AAA games he has pitched.

Strasburg actually hurt some of his AAA stats with last night’s game as batters are now hitting .068 against him, up from .027. And now has 4 walks in 18.1 innings pitched in AAA. In all seriousness though, Strasburg has been nothing short of amazing, his 9 strikeouts last night give him a 22-4 strikeout to walk ratio in AAA, and in over two full games worth of batters he hasn’t allowed a single one to cross the plate. Strasburg’s AAA line stands at 3-0 with a 0.00 ERA, and his complete minor league numbers are just as impressive. He is 6-1 with a 0.89 ERA and a .123 batting average against. And in 40.1 innings he has allowed just 17 hits and 10 walks, while striking out 49 batters.

While Strasburg might not be able to put up those kind of numbers without his best stuff in the Majors, it is nice to see that he can dominate and make adjustments even when is game is a little off. If everything goes right, Strasburg should be up in the majors within 2 weeks, and if games like last night are any indication he has been well worth the wait for Nationals fans.