Stephen Strasburg: From the Stadium

Yeah, I was there. Why did I drive 3.5 hours from Philadelphia to Washington D.C., wait in long lines on the metro, and run to get in the stadium in time to see a 21 year old pitcher from California face the worst hitting team in the majors? Hype. This kid was labeled as the greatest pitching prospect in the last 30 years, a "once in a lifetime talent." This kid had it all.

But seriously, could I really expect anything from him on his first ever start in a city on the other side of the country? I could, but to be honest I didn't expect what he showed me. Did anyone?

With a Nationals record 14 strikeouts, 0 BBs (0!), and 7 innings pitched throwing less than 100 pitches, he dazzled. Sure everyone joked about how amazing he was going to be and how he is the best we have ever seen... could he be?

I know for one I am not going to get rid of that ticket just in case he becomes who he is touted to be.

But I know you don't really care about the fact that I was there (and on tv and on mlb.com highlights-- the 2:02 mark of the Mr. Precedent recap), so I'll give you my thoughts on his performance.

-His curveball is nasty. Nasty and he went to it early and often. And he learned pretty quickly that throwing too many breaking balls results in bad results. Delwyn Young's homerun (after multiple breaking balls in the at bat) came off of a breaking ball. He has to learn (and I have no doubt he will) to mix pitches better. He primarily throws only fastballs and curveballs, with an occasional change-up and what some are calling a dipping or rising 4 seam fastball (his fastball either moves up in the zone or drops like a breaking ball, only at 98+ mph). So with so few pitches he needs to figure out a method to mix and match to always keep the hitters off guard.

-He can throw. He consistently hit upper 90's and even 101 mph at one point and the hitters looked absolutely helpless. When you have a fastball as good as his, you can tend to rely solely on it, but he did mix in breaking balls (but like I said before to a fault). He definitely went to a high, rising fast ball as his out pitch and it seemed to work fairly well until the middle innings where the Pirates started to keen in on it.

-He has poise. He ended the game with 7 straight strikeouts and battled back from multiple 3 ball counts and also got out of a few jams (he only let up 4 hits, so there wasn't much going on on the base paths).

We truly won't know how good he is until he is tested and until he has faced the league a few times, but it was definitely a night that all will remember.

Could this be the start of a legend? Maybe. But I know for a fact that that was one of the greatest debuts I have ever witnessed.