Thursday, October 24

Stephen Strasburg, on the Finish

Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports

Throughout the 2019 postseason, the Washington Nationals made a behavior of utilizing their total margin of error. They wanted a three-run, last-ditch rally to get out of the Wild Card recreation, then one other Eleventh-hour comeback to get previous the Dodgers in Game 5 of the NLDS. Dave Martinez tried to shorten his pitching workers as a lot as potential, a desperation transfer that’s backfired on supervisor after supervisor so long as there have been playoffs.

By the time Game 6 of the World Series rolled round, the Nationals had been dealing with elimination as soon as once more. They’d misplaced three straight to the 107-win Astros and wanted to beat Justin Verlander on the highway to remain alive. Patrick Corbin had been run ragged. Max Scherzer’s physique had locked as much as the purpose the place he couldn’t costume himself. Martinez had already gambled with the likes of Tanner Rainey and Wander Suero greater than anybody was comfy with.

Then Stephen Strasburg stepped up and did one thing you don’t see pitchers do a lot anymore. He dealt with it.

After a rocky first inning, Strasburg saved the irrepressible Astros offense off the board into the ninth. The Nats as soon as once more scored bunches of runs late, and the following night they had been hoisting the proverbial piece of steel.

Strasburg’s final outing of 2019 marks the one time since 2015 that the day’s beginning pitcher recorded an out within the ninth inning of a World Series. It’s the one occasion since 2017 of a beginning pitcher recording an out within the ninth inning of any playoff recreation. Strasburg was voted World Series MVP for his effort.

There’s a fairly good case to be made that Strasburg, a pitcher whose most well-known playoff begins are arguably those he didn’t make, is one of the best postseason pitcher in main league historical past. Among pitchers with at the least 50 playoff innings, Strasburg has the fifth-lowest ERA, behind Mariano Rivera, Christy Mathewson, Sandy Koufax, and Eddie Plank, all Hall of Famers. No starter prior to now 50 years can match him: not Curt Schilling or Madison Bumgarner. Not even Bob Gibson, pitching within the second useless ball period.

The evening of Game 6, I wrote about Strasburg’s hero-making begin because the capstone of a novel Nationals profession, a poetic counterweight to the controversial innings restrict that had saved him from taking part in Washington’s first postseason run in 2012. Strasburg had the choice to turn out to be a free agent after the 2019 season, and it was removed from a certainty that the Nats — who’d simply let Bryce Harper stroll the earlier winter — would give a 31-year-old pitcher the form of cash Strasburg had so clearly earned. I used to be assured that this might be Strasburg’s final look in a Nationals uniform.

I used to be fallacious, however solely technically. Strasburg duly opted out, however Washington introduced him again in any case, on a seven-year, $245 million contract that runs via 2026. But Strasburg made simply eight begins over three seasons earlier than accidents erased the second half of what must have been a Hall of Fame profession. And not regular accidents, like a torn UCL or an uncooperative rotator cuff: neuritis, and in the end thoracic outlet syndrome, the closest factor there may be to an unrecoverable pitcher damage.

Strasburg nonetheless has three years and greater than $100 million left on his contract, so he gained’t formally retire simply but. But final Thursday the Washington Post reported that Strasburg can be giving up on a comeback try that’s seemed all however hopeless for years. The official announcement will come someday after Labor Day.

As far as I’m involved, these final eight injury-riddled begins by no means occurred, and our ultimate reminiscence of Strasburg as a participant shall be of him toting the Commissioner’s Trophy across the Minute Maid Park outfield within the wake of the Nationals’ Game 7 win. Hirsute and broad and immutable, like a forest. Larger than life.

What a method to exit.

Whenever a participant with Hall of Fame expertise is pressured to retire via damage, there’s a way of communal grief. People who love baseball perceive that there’s unfulfilled potential that’s been misplaced, and we mourn as a result of we’re worse off for not seeing it fulfilled.

I don’t suppose that’s applicable in Strasburg’s case, as a result of although he misplaced a full season early in his profession to Tommy John surgical procedure and was principally carried out at age 31, I don’t suppose there’s rather more he may have completed. He performed eight full seasons within the majors, and components of 13. He was an important participant on a championship group and gained an Olympic bronze medal. He by no means gained a Cy Young — by no means even completed second — however he made three All-Star groups. When he was wholesome, Strasburg was among the many finest pitchers in baseball. Oh, and by the point he collects his final examine from the Nationals, he’ll have made one of the best a part of $400 million. It’s not Roger Clemens with out the PEDs, which was the hype when Strasburg was popping out of San Diego State, however it’s a tough profession to complain about.

But whereas Strasburg’s retirement doesn’t depart behind the identical whiff of disappointment as Matt Harvey or Mark Prior, it hurts to know his profession is formally over.

Strasburg has all the time been one in every of my favourite gamers to jot down about — a former editor of mine as soon as joked that Strasburg was my “muse” — and I doubt I’m alone. As a lot as I may go on about his physicality, his fastball, his scythe of a curveball, and the way they affected the sport empirically, the 2 issues that made Strasburg right into a legendary determine are utterly ineffable.

The first was his capability to encourage marvel. If you possibly can recall the hype round Strasburg as a school participant, you don’t have to be reminded. But it’s a bit bracing to look again 15 years later and take into consideration the legendary prospect standing Strasburg carried in that now-primitive media atmosphere.

In 2008, there was no multifaceted public-facing prospect protection, little or no streaming media, and solely a rudimentary community of blogs and social media to cowl the trivia of baseball. If you wished to learn about school baseball, you both needed to subscribe to Baseball America, go and watch it in particular person, or wait till the College World Series was on cable.

Despite all that, Strasburg was a family title, a Tony Gwynn protégé with a triple-digit fastball and a breaking ball that was near actually unhittable. As a school sophomore, he not solely made an Olympic group stuffed with upper-minors prospects, however was chosen to start out the event semifinal. In the years since, a extra rabid and better-informed baseball-watching public has seen Carlos Rodón or Kumar Rocker or Paul Skenes mow down hapless undergraduates, and we’ve gasped within the collective realization that that is what it appears to be like like, solely extra so.

That, ramped as much as an depth unseen within the pre-Shohei Ohtani period, was Strasburg. His main league debut was a nationwide TV occasion, an important factor that had occurred to a D.C.-based baseball group in a long time. Strasburg obliged the viewers by punching out 14 Pirates. Plenty of rookies have constructed up nationwide hype over time, however nearly none had been as extremely anticipated as Strasburg. Follow baseball lengthy sufficient and occasions will begin to blur collectively, however I not solely keep in mind the place I used to be for Strasburg’s debut, however the place I used to be once I discovered he’d torn his UCL three months later.

That air of specialness by no means actually went away, even to the top of his prime. And even when Strasburg turned out to merely be one in every of one of the best pitchers within the sport and never the finest pitcher within the sport, that sparkle didn’t fade. In reality, it nearly made Strasburg extra fascinating. Every time you went to the park or turned on the TV for his evening on the mound, the likelihood remained that you simply’d see one thing particular. But it by no means received so routine, because it did with Clayton Kershaw, that we took it with no consideration. The precarity that got here with Strasburg’s perceived fragility made him all of the extra treasured.

Strasburg’s first nice reward compounded together with his second: History saved occurring to him.

That’s completely different from a aptitude for the dramatic. Strasburg, nice as he was in massive video games, was stonefaced on the mound and pretty laconic off it. No nice celebrations or memorable quotes spring to thoughts. Just amongst his Nationals teammates, Scherzer, Harper, and Juan Soto have all proven themselves to bear in mind when the lights are brightest, and appear to amp themselves up for the event. They thrive beneath stress. Other gamers wilt beneath it. Strasburg appeared unaware of it, pitching within the World Series with all of the adrenaline and ceremony that comes with mowing your garden.

It’s additionally distinct from popping up round massive moments, like Strasburg’s former supervisor Dusty Baker. Baker was within the on-deck circle for Hank Aaron’s 715th dwelling run. He was celebration to the invention of the excessive 5. He was within the dugout for Barry Bonds and Steve Bartman. He bumps into historic events like Forrest Gump.

Strasburg appeared to tug historical past towards himself, like a planet attracting a wandering comet. In 2012, he discovered himself on the heart of a watershed second within the debate over pitching workloads, an issue that’s conditioned the event of each younger pitcher who’s come alongside since and continues to be most likely an important second of Strasburg’s profession.

Five years later, after taking a no-hitter into the sixth inning of Game 1 of the NLDS, Strasburg fell sick the day of his subsequent scheduled begin, touching off one of many final nice salvos of performative machismo in sports. When Strasburg got here again, he shut the Cubs down for seven innings in damp, misty situations at Wrigley Field, answering for good any questions on his toughness or will.

In lower than six years since, the way in which we speak about athletes’ bodily and psychological well being has modified a lot as to render earlier norms unrecognizable.

And then there’s Strasburg’s 2019 playoff run, which capped off that aforementioned legacy of playoff excellence.

With his metronomic consistency, Strasburg put a 106-win Dodgers group off the rails, then did the identical to the Astros. Remember, that sequence was presupposed to be the cherry on the highest of a historic season by Houston’s front-of-the-rotation duo of Verlander and Gerrit Cole. But Strasburg held again the tide, leaving the cameras to fade out on an aggrieved and befuddled Astros group that, only a month later, would discover itself embroiled in a generational scandal.

I’ll miss watching and writing about Strasburg as a result of he was nice, sure. Because he was thrilling. But most of all as a result of he was essential. Baseball’s acquainted abundance could make residing with the game a bit monotonous, because it’s troublesome to discover a motive to rise up for a September recreation between third- and fourth-place groups with nothing on the road.

There was all the time one thing on the road with Strasburg. Every pitch he threw mattered. Sometimes as a result of the destiny of the World Series or the course of participant improvement clearly hung within the stability. Sometimes, you couldn’t precisely title a motive. But you can all the time really feel it.

Content Source: blogs.fangraphs.com