Nats Love What They See in Strasburg

I received the following in an email from the Nationals last week.  Each year we go down with clients and we have been placed on an email list.   So who do you think the Nats are going to take with their first pick in the draft?  Enjoy…

Tom,

With Ryan Zimmerman riding a 29 game hitting streak and Adam Dunn on the way to another 40+ home run season all is strong on the batting front for the Nationals as we settle into the second month of the season.  But as many of you know the pitching, outside of two rookie starters Jordan Zimmermann & Shairon Martis, has been a bit challenged….to say the least!

How does a MLB team fix this?  Besides highly touted pitching prospects in our minor league system that may soon get the call-up to the big club, the Nationals will attempt to improve our pitching through the baseball amateur draft next month. This season there is a clear cut unanimous choice from every baseball expert as the number one pick: Stephen Strasburg the ace pitcher for San Diego State.  Strasburg is coached by Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn…not a bad tutor… who has been fantastic in mentoring this pitching sensation as he sails through his junior season amid all the national media attention that has descended upon him. 

Much has recently been written about the liabilities of selecting a pitcher number one in the draft as no pitcher ever selected first in the draft has reached the Hall of Fame.  That young flame throwers flame out far too quickly, before their potentials are ever reached.  Yet I pose this thought: for every Kwame Brown and Heath Shuler there are an Alex Ovechkin and Ryan Zimmerman.  Number one picks all by the local teams.  Two are already obscure footnotes to trivia questions while two are headed to unknown heights in their respective professions.

 May Strasburg and the Nationals strike Gold together  at Nationals Park for the next 15-20 years!  Enjoy.

I have attached a link to an enjoyable article from Larry Stone of the Seattle Times about Stephen Strasburg and what he has meant to San Diego State.  (Cheerleaders and the band came to SDSU to support Strasburg…)[Seattle Times}

Keith Olbermann got the inside scoop on Matt Capps and Joe Kerrigan’s bullpen work…. check this out from his blog:

"Avast Ye, MateyDid you see Matt Capps of the Pirates, after Friday Night’s meltdown, warming up before last night’s tilt with the Rockies?He was wearing a blindfold over his left eye.Admittedly it was a white sleeve or sock, and it was over the wrong eye, but otherwise it was a mirror image of the Pirates’ old logo (not the ’90s one that appeared to show The Soup Nazi from ‘Seinfeld.’). And as pitching coach Joe Kerrigan stood next to him, it looked like the Pittsburgh closer had lost a bet, or was trying to do his impression of the late Eddie Feigner from the softball team “The King And His Court,” and couldn’t quite do the whole handkerchief-over-both-eyes-while-pitching trick.“Capps was turning his head, over-rotating towards 3rd Base, causing his front shoulder to point behind the righthanders’ batter’s box,” Kerrigan tells me by e-mail from Pittsburgh. “You put a patch over his left eye, so his right eye can see the target, hence he can’t overturn. Simple playground stuff.”Love that.Capps and Kerrigan, according to the Pirates’ game broadcast Saturday night, were also looking at tape of the reliever’s salad days of 2007 and the comparisons to this season are not happy ones. His arm has been well behind his body – he’s expending his energy long before his arm is fully extended and he’s ready to release the ball. Kerrigan apparently diagnosed the problem as he described in the e-mail — over-rotation — and came up with the simple solution for a bullpen session (the out-of-synch release might also explain Capps’ elbow bruising and discomfort). Unfortunately I don’t think Capps can use it in a game."

 Today’s starter for the Nats is Ross Detwiler who really sucked in Spring Training.  8+ ERA suck.  Detwiler was the Nats top pick in 2007.  He hasn’t set A ball on fire or AA for that matter, but the Nats are very high on him and he got the call.  I trust we can crush his MLB debut as a starter, he threw a scoreless inning of relief last year for the Nats.   [Washington Times]

 Swab the Web:

Steeler Guard Carlton Haselrig was a winner in the first sanctioned Western PA MMA fight at the Johnstown War Memorial.  Here is the video of the fight.  [Trib]

So much for the Curve long streak of successful starting pitching.  [Curve]