By: Dan Hauser
By now we all know about Washington
Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg’s inning pitch count. It’s talked about on
every sports channel, mentioned during every Nationals highlight, and discussed
during every one of his starts. Whether the organization lets him go 160 or 180
innings one thing is for certain. The Washington Nationals are shutting down
their star-studded ace before the end of the season while they are all but a
lock to make their first postseason in franchise history. The question now is
could this all have been avoided with better planning.
The Nationals knew from the day
spring training started that he was going to have this inning count. It was
originally set at 160 innings. Yet the franchise had no contingency plan set up
for if this team, which was built to make a playoff run this year, actually
made the playoffs. Fast forward five months to August and here we have the
Nationals currently holding the best record in baseball and anywhere from 30 to
50 innings away from shutting down their staff ace.
It seems like there was once simple
solution to all of this that could have stopped this all from happening. The
Nationals could have simply spread out his starts a little more and extended
the life of his season. Instead of pitching him once every five days, they
could have pitched him once every six or even seven days. The Atlanta Braves
have gone to a six-man rotation so why couldn’t Washington do the same?
Another option the Nationals could
have done was shut him down now and save the innings he has left for when they
need him in the playoffs. However, the team seems to be content on throwing him
out there once every five days, shutting him down at 160 or 180, and then
explaining to fans when the playoffs roll around why their all star phenom is
on the bench instead of on the hill.
0 comments:
Post a Comment