Nationals Farm Authority

As you have no doubtedly heard by now, UVA touched Strasburg for 2 runs early and held on against San Diego State’s impotent offense to take the first game of the Irvine regional 5-1.  Strasburg’s final line from the box score: 7ip, 8 hits, 2 runs (both earned) 15ks, 0bbs and between 118 and 120 pitches (i’ve seen it reported differently).  On the face of it, that line would be defined as “dominant” but watching the game, you got a different feel.

Here’s some thoughts from my house (watching along with me were a very happy UVA alum and a fellow baseball fanatic):

• Where was Strasburg’s fastball?  The hardest ball he threw all night was also the biggest mistake of the night: a 98-mph gopherball 6 pitches into the game that UVA’s Phil Gosselin absolutely tattooed to left center.  He hit a ball 30 feet over the 380 sign.  The San Diego paper said he “sat at 97″ most of the night, but that’s not what we saw.  I saw glimpses of 97, mostly 94-95.  No awe-inspiring 99 or 100 as we’ve been hearing all year.
  
  Its possible Strasburg didn’t have his best stuff.  Its possible he was mixing speeds to keep the UVA hitters off balance.  And its possible Gwynn told him not to go 100% so he could throw on sunday or monday if needed.
• Despite not really touching the upper limits on the radar gun, his average fastball on the night was still 94 mph, which would put him among the elite in the majors.  Daniel Cabrera led the league last year with an average fastball at 96.

• Strasburg’s first two innings showed he’s human.  Perhaps Gosselin guessed first pitch fastball and got lucky.  But Strasburg showed some shakiness by throwing a couple wild pitches and muffing the infield grounder.  His team certainly didn’t help; his catcher looked like every other pitch was gonna get away from him and he didn’t do the best job “framing” some of Strasburg’s pitches.  Luckily for both sides, the umpire seemed to have a strike zone that extended several inches to either side of the plate.

• 48 pitches to get through the first two innings, before settling down and going the next 5 innings in 70 pitches, with lots of his outs by strike outs.  Only later in the game did Strasburg start to resemble the amazing pitcher we’ve heard about all year.

• I counted 2 perhaps 3 hard hit balls.  Most of the 7 hits were infield hits or well placed pokes through the infield.

• San Diego State was exposed, badly.  Their 3-4-5 hitters; 0-10 with EIGHT strikeouts.  Their #3 hitter took the golden sombrero with 4 Ks on the night.  The couldn’t touch UVA’s #3 starter; Its hard to see them finding their bats against the aces of these top ranked teams.

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  For an interesting comparison of “spins” of the game, here’s four looks: si.com, the Washington Post, the San Diego Union-Tribune and the Charlottesville Daily Progress.
  
  Summary: it was great to see him throw, and I don’t think he did anything to jeopardize his #1 overall draft pick, but I wonder if he cost himself some money/bargaining position points with the first two innings.
  
  Thoughts?