Stephen Strasburg will start Game 4 against the Cubs

After conflicting accounts, less than ideal communication, and a waterfall of liquid hot takes, Stephen Strasburg will start Game 4 of the NLDS, according to Jon Morosi and later confirmed. The Nationals’ vice-ace had been reportedly scratched from the elimination game because he was “under the weather,” which riled up fans and pundits everywhere.

Strasburg is going to start, everyone.

Previous to this reversal, the hot takes were mostly about how Strasburg’s refusal to pitch (if that’s what it was) was a slap in the face to his teammates (unless they understood) and how the postseason was where Curt Schilling bled for your sins and Kirk Gibson didn’t need to be ambulatory to slay his mustachioed dragon (unless, stay with me here, this situation was somehow unique and deserved to be treated as such).

Now the hot takes will be about how Strasburg needed to be shamed into the start, how he had to realize his baseball faux pas before doing the right thing.

Really, the only hot take needs to be this: Good gravy, did the Nationals screw up the messaging, here.

I can think of 40 different reasons why Strasburg wouldn’t want to pitch that aren’t “I have the sniffles and I need soup, please bring me soup.” But the Nationals, by using terms like “under the weather” and hinting that the problem could be related to mold, made sure that this all seemed like the sniffles.

DUSTY: How you doin’?

STRASBURG: Feel like crap.

DUSTY: Can you go?

STRASBURG: Yeah, but I’d have to think I’d be more effective with another day of rest.

DUSTY: This makes sense to me.

STRASBURG: For the pitcher’s role is one of precise mechanics, and any physical obstacles, from illness to injury, can harm my efforts to implement those mechanics.

DUSTY: I think you lost Strasburg’s voice, Grant.

STRASBURG: Who among us truly knows how I feel apart from myself? The physical weakness does not make it possible for me to be as powerful as I need to be, and this makes your decision something of an understandable gambit, does it not?

DUSTY: Grant, reel it in and go back to the article now.

That could have been the scenario, which isn’t nearly as damning as the hot takes would have you believe.

Anyway, the point is that Strasburg never had to be sniffling and whining his way out of the game. There are tons of scenarios in which the Nationals and Strasburg hashed this out like normal adults and made the decision they felt gave them the best chance to win.

As is, Strasburg is starting anyway, and this could be a sign that he’s caving to the hot takes, or it could be a sign that he’s, wait for it, feeling better. It could also be a sign that they were screwing with the Cubs this whole time, but that’s probably just a personal best-case scenario.

The next time this happens, let’s hope the team learned from this debacle. Yes, our pitcher is sick. He might be dying. He is attached to six IVs of fluid. Make his start? We’re just hoping he makes his 30th birthday. Respect his privacy at this time.

Instead, we have “under the weather,” which went against the orthodoxy that suggests baseball players never admit they’re hurt or sick, even if it clearly makes them lesser players than they normally are. It’s possible that Strasburg did whine his way out of a crucial start, sure, but the way the Nationals and Dusty Baker handled it made it seem like that was the likeliest scenario, which is hard to do. Do better next time.

And don’t screw this up, Strasburg. Be the Michael Jordan of vomitous pitching. They don’t call them hurlers for nothing, ha ha, but seriously, don’t screw this up. Or else the hot takes will be fierce, and they’ll all have the benefit of hindsight. Those are the worst hot takes, but it’s not like we deserve anything better.

At last we’ve confirmed there is no such thing as “hot take weather.” The urban legend suggested that unusually muggy, cloudy, warm days were a sign that hot takes were coming, but that was always just confirmation bias. There are plenty of hot takes coming out of Chicago, and it’s raining there, so get out of here with your hot-take-weather myth.

But, really, don’t screw this up, Strasburg.