Another day at Nats Park. Another amazing performance by a Nationals' pitcher. This time it was Stephen Strasburg. While Max Scherzer had 13 strike outs over 9 innings. Strasburg had 15 over 7 innings.
It was nothing sort of amazing. Strasburg did load the bases in the first inning but after that shaky start he had no problems. Strasburg even got a hit single on the third. He ended up scoring the the Nats' first run.
More from the post:
Star Wars Day began with Allen Cordoba, who had never played a game above Class A before this season, singling to right field. Yangervis Solarte then slapped a soft chopper to Ryan Zimmerman at first base. Zimmerman could have played it safe and settled for the out at first. Instead, he charged the ball and spun around to sling it to second base. The throw went wide, Cordoba was safe, and Zimmerman was charged with his sixth error.
Strasburg retired the next two batters but walked Cory Spangenberg on four pitches to load the bases as rainfall intensified. He then recovered just as quickly, striking out Austin Hedges on three pitches to escape a 27-pitch inning without yielding a run.
“Obviously if another inning or two happened like that again, you wouldn’t go as deep,” Strasburg said. “But you can only go one pitch at a time, can’t go out there and say I have to keep my pitch count down because of that inning. Just have to keep grinding and making pitches.”
Strasburg was finally provided a couple of insurance runs in the sixth inning, when Taylor launched a home run to almost the exact spot he did Friday, beyond the wall in left-center field. Strasburg then took the mound for the final time and completed his day with a perfect frame, capped off by his 15th strikeout, which tied for the fourth-most in Nationals history and gave him 26 strikeouts over his past two starts.
I'll have much more from Star Wars Day in the next couple of posts. But I wanted to post about how incredible Strasburg's day was. He certainly was using the force!
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