Strasburg’s Shutdown

On Saturday the Washington Nationals organization announced that Stephen Strasburg would be shut down for the remainder of the 2012 season. The Nationals are in midst of their first playoff run since the reemergence of Baseball in our Nation’s capital back in 2005. Stras’ shut down has been a foreboding headline since the beginning of the season. GM Mike Rizzo set a 160 innings limit to the right-hander following his Tommy John surgery that he needed after a dominant start to his rookie season. Stras has only pitched 159 1/3.

There had been many reports that came out of the clubhouse regarding a change to Stras’ inning limit. Some had Rizzo debating on extending the limit to 180 innings. Some had Manager, Davey Johnson, skipping some of his starts to take Stras deeper into the season, possibly even the postseason. However neither of those scenarios proved to be the result as Rizzo decided to shut down Stras 2/3 of an inning shorter following a tough outing against the Marlins on Friday.

In a 9-7 loss to Miami, Stras tied his career low by going only 3 innings. He allowed 6 hits and 5 runs, all earned. Among the runs were two solo shots, one by C Rob Brantly and the other by OF Giancarlo Stanton. Despite the unfortunate outing, The Nationals rallied back in the seventh, and tied the game in the eighth following a four inning outing by recent call up, Zack Duke. However, the Nats lost the game in extra innings following a clutch triple by SS Jose Reyes, his tenth of the season, and a sacrifice fly by 1B Carlos Lee.

The off game made Johnson question Stras’ mindset in midst of the shutdown glooming over the head of the ace of the staff. When Stras was asked about if he felt that the shutdown approaching had a toll on his outing Friday, he replied, “Nah, I just don’t think I pitched well.”

Reports claim Johnson had talked to Rizzo after the game and they both had come to an agreement to initiate the shutdown, ending Stras’ season at 159 1/3 innings with a 15-6 record, 197 strikeouts, and 3.16 ERA.

The news broke the next morning before the second game of the series against Miami. The game was delayed in the bottom of the ninth and ended with a come behind Curly W, however that wasn’t the story that the media wanted to address. Everyone turned to Stras for the post game interview.

When asked how he felt about the shutdown that was implemented on him so close to the post season and with the Nationals sitting in contention for it, Stras replied, “I don’t know if I’m ever going to accept it to be honest.” He continued, “You don’t grow up dreaming of playing for the big leagues just to get shutdown when the, when the games start to matter.” Neither Davey Johnson nor Mike Rizzo has made any comments on Stras’ disagreements.

What many people don’t get is that for the Nationals to continue to be a NL contender, the team cannot risk key pieces in the teams lineup or rotation. Stras is coming back from a very delicate surgery and risking his future for the first pennant race that we are involved in is foolish when we can be involved in many to come in the future with his help. Granted there is the possibility that we may never be able to take advantage of another great jump to a season like we did this season or we may not see the results we seen this season, but taking a look at our lineup and rotation, I can bet that we can duplicate another season like this one.

This is why I personally support the decision to shut Stras down, even if it is a month away from October. Our pitching staff is still looking great and in depth. Gio Gonzalez is leading the league in Wins following the 5-1 victory over the Mets last night. Jordan Zimmermann has shown that he can give an average of 6 innings a game following his performance in the months of July and August. Edwin Jackson has been a little shaky throughout the season, however has given us depth in games as well and is the post-season veteran. Also we still have John Lannan, who we called back up with our September roster expansion, Chien Ming Wang in the farms, and not to mention the bullpen that has shown its worth with its strong season. All in all I believe the Nats still have a strong pitching staff that can perform in the playoffs with support of a very productive batting line up.