Well in a story that was just made for writers. movies, sports pages, etc, Strasburg made his highly anticipated debut tonight and he was pretty much exactly as as advertised. Before we get into the numbers, we have to talk about the atmosphere. Currently living in DC, I was watching the evening news, which was pretty much all Strasburg coverage and one fan quoted on our local Channel 9 said this “We got Strasburg, John Wall, Ovie and McNabb baby! DC Sports!” Thats when it hit me, one aspect of Strasburg's start that hasn't really been looked at is that it really marks a revival in not just Washington Baseball but all of Washington Sports. The fan atmosphere overall tonight was really unlike anything I have ever seen in DC. The only thing that comes close is the first game at Nationals Park, but even that still fails in comparison to the fans tonight. As jealous as I am, and I am pretty jealous, I'm glad for the Nationals fanbase because it is good for baseball and its good for our division.
Enough with the psychological stuff though, lets get into the numbers:
When you look at the first few numbers, the intial reaction is 2 ER over 7, thats great, but not amazing. Then you get to the last two numbers, 0 BB and 14 K. Granted he was facing the Pirates, but he fell behind hitters a lot early, and not walking them, but instead striking them out, thats a big deal. Those K numbers are something else, and will probably be the legacy of tonight. It is also worthwhile to note that his first major league strikeout was Lasting Milledge, who if you think Mets fans boo him, you should have heard Nats fans. (Actually, it was amazing to actually hear Nats fans).
A good night for Strasburg, now I start to pray he doesn't do this against the Mets.
