Stephen Strasburg Lives Up To The Hype With Brilliant 14 Strikeout Debut In Nats’ 5-2 Win

(Via Mister Irrelevant)

— His fastball has almost as much break as his curveball, which is saying a lot considering his breaking ball borders on unhittable.

— And, this:

(For the Sports Network official recap, visit here.)

Stephen Strasburg threw 94 pitches Tuesday night. 58 of them were fastballs. They averaged 97.7 miles per hour. The slowest was 95.3. The fastest was 100.1. Nine of them were cut on and missed.

And, just for funsies, this is how Strasburg started Andy LaRoche off in that at bat:

Sometimes I have daydreamed about how I wish I were a Major League Baseball player. It’s times like this I’m glad I’m not. I don’t make a lot of cash, but I still have my dignity.

Good luck everybody.

The neat thing about this live-blog is that I don’t give a crap about the bottom halves of each inning. I’m only here for you, Stevie.

All right, I’m here with quesadilla in hand, ready to kick this thing off. I see MLB Network kicked it off about an hour ago. I’m certain they filled that time with worthwhile information.

PIRATES:

Andrew McCutchen, CF

Neil Walker, 2B

Lastings Milledge, LF

Garrett Jones, 1B

Delwyn Young, RF

Andy LaRoche, 3B

Ronny Cedeno, SS

Jason Jaramillo, C

Jeff Karstens, SP

The press release:

NATIONALS RECALL STEPHEN STRASBURG FROM SYRACUSE, REINSTATE IVAN RODRIGUEZ FROM DL & DESIGNATE JAMIE BURKE FOR ASSIGNMENT

Baseball Prospectus’ Will Carroll chimes in with a viewing guide of sorts for tonight’s...well for tonight’s only game, as far as anyone’s concerned. He runs down the five key points, as he sees them:

1) Fastball

Johnny Cash’s “The Man Comes Around” is a song with a meaning much deeper than any baseball game (for example, death). But when you play it over photos and clips of Stephen Strasburg, and listen to the words, you can almost pretend it was written just for him.

OK, maybe that’s a stretch. But this is still pretty awesome. Goosebumps, engage

This should come as little surprise, given that the Nationals aren’t insane, but anyway, according to Ed Price:

The Pirates have one of the worst offenses in baseball, with a .307 team OBP and a below-average number of pitches per plate appearance, and for good measure they’ve been worse against righties than lefties. Unless something goes wrong, Strasburg should be able to approach or reach those six innings with little problem.

The following was submitted by Patrick Reddington of Federal Baseball:

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The top overall pick of the 2009 draft, Nationals fans have been counting down the days until their mound savior would be unleashed at the major league level. That date was announced as today last week after the 21-year-old dominated the minor leagues.

Strasburg went a combined 7-2 with a 1.30 earned run average in 11 combined starts at Double-A Harrisburg and Triple-A Syracuse. He allowed eight earned runs, including just four with Syracuse, over 55 1/3 innings while striking out 65 batters and allowing just one homer. In his final minor-league start last Tuesday with the Chiefs, the right-handed San Diego State product hurled five scoreless innings.