Luis Avilan is out!
Wait that's not the big story.
Wander Suero is out!
Wait that's not either.
Lance Lynn is out!
Ok now I'm just ignoring it purposefully.
Stephen Strasburg was put on the IL yesterday morning. It was the 10-Day and it was with shoulder inflammation. This brings up both a lot of worries - over his health, this season, and the team going forward - and a lot of questions - over what exactly was going on the other night. If you remember Strasburg pitched poorly, was seen rubbing his shoulder in the tunnel and both Stras and Davey reacted as if the biggest thing wrong that night was the camera shooting into the tunnel.
It seems like something went wrong. WE knew he didn't look right. It seems ridiculous to think they didn't. But if they did - why let him pitch through it for as long as they did?
They thought it was something else? Wasn't a big deal? That's a bad staff!
They thought it didn't matter if he stopped or not in terms of health? I don't see how that works - and even if possible you go safe over sorry with this arm. Shoulder stuff is no joke for pitchers. If serious it's often far harder to come back from than elbow issues.
The Nats need Strasburg. Max, for as great as he is, can't last forever. He's up for a contract at the end of this year and he may price himself out of the Nats plans - looking for a team trying to win that will pay for 3 ace years to get one. If they do sign him the clock keeps ticking on how long he can be great. Corbin... well we all saw him last week and even if that is a temporary issue the fact that he doesn't have the history and consistency of an ace is not. They need Strasburg and his 25-28 starts a year of ace pitching. They need this for another half-decade or so. Without it they are going to be in big trouble.
This is angering.
In his place steps in Paolo Espino who isn't very good. They may sign Anibal Sanchez who might hold the fort down. Maybe.
Oh in the meantime the Nats won 2 out of the remaining 3 games against the D-backs, splitting a series at home against an inferior opponent. You don't want to see that. Max was great. Fedde was very good. But even Espino could give you something which to me says the D-Backs are far more a bad line-up than the Nats have good starting pitching. Still you saw what you wanted to see from Max and Fedde. You can't ask for more. The bats on the other hand are a little on the cold side. Runs per game they are toward the bottom of the NL. We'll see if they can't wake up against the Cardinals.
The Cardinals
We head right into a series. The Cardinals are a Jeckyll and Hyde team who can score but seem to do it in bunches. They do not pitch well so let's see those bats do something.
Flaherty vs Ross - Flaherty might be rounding back into his pre-pandemic form. We're looking for Ross to continue to be good.
Wainwright vs Corbin - THE game of the week for the Nats as fans hope and pray Corbin doesn't blow up again. Wainwright isn't quite himself yet so the Nats need to take advantage of that
Martinez vs Scherzer - It's fair to expect a good outing from Max and the Cards can't say the same of the sometimes dominant sometimes terrible Martinez. This should be a win.
The Nats need a sweep to take the homestand in the way I wanted going in. 2-1 would be off that but I'd take it now. Losing the series is not acceptable.
10 comments:
DOOM
DOOM!
Watching the Dodgers / Padres series all I could think was, the Nats are not even in the same league.... DOOM
Don't worry about Max. Even if there Nats don't sign him next season, they'll still be paying his salary for years to come.
The Nats are OLD. Literally the oldest pitching staff in the league at an average age of 30.8, a full half year old than the next closest team. The batters aren't quite as bad, but still bottom 10 and if you consider who the regular starters are, really only Soto and Robles can be considered young. Injuries were to be expected, and the fact that there was zero depth is an indication that Rizzo did not think this through.
I've said it before, but the Nats have been on a slow trajectory into SF Giants type mediocrity. There's no plan for rebuilding the farm, zero. That means the Nats have to buy/trade. But the Lerners are frugal. They dump lots of money into a few players and then expect Rizzo to work magic with the dregs.
For a while that got the job done, but then the competitive landscape shifted. Finding a diamond in the rough is a lot more difficult now that analytics dominate a lot of front offices. I just don't see how the Nats can get that pipeline of talent rebuilt without cutting some salary loose. That means not re-signing Max. That arguably means not re-signing Turner if timelines don't match up. Soto you have to lockdown, but he's pretty much the only person on the roster I'd say the Nats couldn't part with at this point.
That was a longwinded way of saying TEAR IT ALL DOWN AND REBUILD DAMMIT
Why would Soto sign a long term deal to be part of a rebuild?
CP - well first SPEND ALL THE MONEY TO SIGN GOOD PLAYERS LUXURY TAX BE DAMNED
(gotta get that out of the way)
I don't think you have to yell but I do think the Nats are probably at that point in their team where a step back for a step forward would traditionally be done. They have wrung nearly all they can from finding themselves with a super young and good team in 2012. But let's first see what Strasburg's injury situation is like. Yes you can rebuild but look around - they are hardly guarantees of success. Trying to win when you have a couple healthy aces is a much better proposition.
Egon - the idea would be you rebuild NOW so the team looks like it's swinging up going into 2025. Basically you sell Soto on that (and then do it).
Is there anyone here who believes Stras will actually be out a mere 10 days?
I give it to June, minimum.
Robot - maybe Janes
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