It has been a long time since the debut of a player, in any sport, had been hyped as much as that of Stephen Strasburg's. It's so difficult to live up that kind of hype but Strasburg's performance probably exceeded the high expecations of most - at least in his first start.
Five of his first 8 pitches went for balls, and one wonders if there might have been some early jitters, but if he was a little nervous (but really, who wouldn't be a little nervous) he seemed to settle in fairly quickly, ultimately getting a 1-2-3 inning in his first inning of work, and finishing it off with his first major league strikeout.
This guy just has killer stuff! He was an absolute joy to watch. The fastball topped out at 100mph, and it's got great movement on it. I saw a 98mph fastaball that I thought was a slider for a second because of the movement that it had on it. His changeup hit 91mph on the radar gun. Shaun Marcum doesn't throw his fastball at that speed! He's almost throwing his changeup too hard. With the fastball coming at 96mph sometimes, throwing your changeup at 91mph isn't putting hitters out in front of the pitch as much as they should be in order to make the changeup effective. I love the curveball. Just deadly. Throwing the curveball at about 79/80mph when your fastball is hitting triple digits on the radar gun can really make hitters look stupid, and that's exactly what Strasburg did.
He struck out a total of 14 over 7 innings! 14Ks! He struck out every player in Pittsburgh's starting lineup at least once. He also didn't even walk a batter. The only real mistake that he made was one of his 90mph changeups that should have dove out of the strike zone, but didn't get quite low enough, and Delwyn Young hit the ball out to right-centre field.
Strasburg would have had himself an infield hit in his first big league AB, but he took a nice little jog down to first base, either because he felt like he was going to be thrown out easily by Ronny Cedeno or because he is being told not to go nuts on the basepaths in order to avoid injury.
If you're on the road in the US this summer, and you're in the nation's capital, go check out a Nationals game. It would be an absolute treat for any baseball fan to see Strasburg, and Nationals Park is gorgeous. From my experience last summer, very friendly ushers that make the fans of the visiting teams feel very comfortable. The one usher told us that he could grab us some nicer seats half way through the game if we wanted. I was fine with my seats right by the Jays bullpen. However, if you're going to see Strasburg pitch, there might not be many seats available - it was standing room only tonight.
Don't expect Strasburg to be quite as dominant in his next few starts as he faces offences stronger than that of Pittsburgh, and as major league hitters get used to his stuff.
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