Nationals star Stephen Strasburg missed the beginning of the season with a nerve issue in his right hand, but it didn’t shelve him for long. The reigning World Series MVP made his season debut last Sunday, though the Orioles roughed him up for five earned runs on seven hits in 4 1/3 innings. It turns out that Strasburg may not have been at full strength during that outing, as manager Dave Martinez revealed Wednesday (via Byron Kerr of MASNsports.com) that the 32-year-old is still dealing with tingling in his hand. “I was a little bit concerned,” admitted Martinez, who added that “we will definitely have to keep an eye on it.” Strasburg’s scheduled to face Baltimore again on Friday, at least for now.
- Oft-injured Mets infielder Jed Lowrie will undergo injections in his ailing left knee, Anthony DiComo of MLB.com tweets. The Mets won’t have a timeline for a potential 2020 debut for Lowrie until they see how those injections affect him. At this point, though, it’s clear the Mets can’t count on Lowrie to emerge as a late-season reinforcement. The club’s decision to sign him to a two-year, $20MM contract before 2019 has been an abject failure, as Lowrie has appeared in just nine games since.
- The Braves aren’t expecting either second baseman Ozzie Albies or first baseman Matt Adams to return next week, manager Brian Snitker said Wednesday (via David O’Brien of The Athletic). Both players have been on the injured list since Aug. 5 (Albies for a wrist issue, Adams for a hamstring problem), though Albies is obviously the more important member of the club. After all, Albies turned in terrific seasons in 2018 and ’19 as a full-timer in the Braves’ lineup. They’ve primarily gone to Johan Camargo and Adeiny Hechavarria at the keystone in Albies’ absence.
- Southpaw reliever Sam Freeman left the Nationals’ loss to the Mets on Wednesday with a flexor strain, Britt Ghiroli of The Athletic relays. There’s “a level of concern” over the injury, per Martinez, especially because Freeman underwent Tommy John surgery in the past. Freeman, whom the Nats signed to a minor league contract in free agency, has tossed five scoreless innings for them this year.
Is it just me or did anyone else really hesitate when the Nats gave Strasburg that contract? That’s a lot of years and a lot of money for a guy with a checkered injury history who is also on the wrong side of 30 by 2 years.
Nope that contract was bad from the start. Who were they even bidding against? At that point might as well add an extra 100 million and go for Cole. Another World Series champ fell victim to love in the air and handed out a deal they shouldn’t have.
“Who were they even bidding against” — you cannot be serious. After what Strasburg did last year, you think other teams would not have scrambled to sign the guy? The Nats just casually tossed a gazillion dollar contract at him? And to add $100 million to your payroill to instead get a guy like Cole who is slightly better AT BEST? Makes no sense. Great pitching is the hardest thing to replace, so you sign Strasburg and wish Rendon the best. Dude wanted to play on the left coast anyway.
“Slightly better at best”
LOLOLOL. Thanks, I needed that laugh.
Oh looky, we have a Phillies troll join the proceedings! Isn’t that cute!!!
Hey genius it wouldn’t add 100 million to their payroll. It would add that divided by the years in his contract to the payroll. Just because Strasburg was good last year doesn’t mean teams were lining up to give him well over 200 million. Only 3 teams were attempting to sign Cole. 2 Rendon. There were zero rumored teams pushing hard for Stras. Cole is not “slightly better” he is significantly better, younger and less inury prone. Mike Rizzo is badly mistaking if he thinks he can ignore the offense to the level he has and still be competitive. Juan Soto is not going to carry them every night.
Love the fact that you know that his meetings with the Yankees and Dodgers resulted in zero interest. You may want to look up the definition of the word ‘payroll’. Payroll is not equated with *annual* salaries by business owners, although it can be parsed by posters on internet boards. And since you missed the point, I’ll restate: Gerrit Cole is not $100 million better than Strasburg. Secondly, 30 days after the WS ended, he resigned with Washington. You really think Scott Boras could not have gotten more time to get a similar deal from the Yankees or Dodgers, or anyone, else. Uh huh. Rendon was off the radar to people like you until the last year or 2. Now you think he’s George Brett. Furthmore, suggesting Rizzo ignored the offense is patently absurd — who else should they have signed during the offseason? Must be nice to sit in the lounge chair and bang out such insightful posts. Genius.
Rendon may have wanted to play on the left coast, but if Washington offered him $10M more than LAA, he’d be on the Nationals right now. It’s all about the money, location is a distant second for players like Rendon, Cole, Strasburg, Mookie, etc.
Washington offered him a deal that was heavily back ended. Which says it all. They wanted him back. But did they *need* him back? Obviously not.
LOL the Yankees were going after their golden boy Cole and Dodgers were not hanging Strasburg 245 million. Maybe the Angels could have but considering they signed Rendon 24 hours after Stras got signed they weren’t interested. Cole is absolutely 100 million better than Cole. You have to be a complete homer to think the injury prone older player is better than Cole.
Never said Strasburg is better than Cole. He isn’t. That’s YOUR straw man argument. Poor Bryce Harper also *supposedly* had no leverage 2 years ago with other teams until Boras closed on the Phillies. And he had less leverage than Strasburg did last year. You paint Strasburg like he’s Anibal Sanchez, lol.
And the “Strasburg is injury prone” line is so outdated & tiresome. Let me give you a hint, since you obviously need help: If you had argued that Strasburg has struggled over his career going deep into games, than you would be right, and look coherent for a change.Few years ago Stras opted to pitch strictly from the Stretch to minimize injury by reducing stress on his arm-neck-back stress, and became a workout fiend. The results in 2019 spoke for themselves.
He’s appeared in 86% of the 264 regular season games he “should have” appeared in since 2012 — how’s THAT for a sample size!!!!! Is that 86% rate great? Of course not. Is it Horrible? No, BUT it is cause for angst by lounge chair bedwetters who dont regularly follow the team.
As a Met fan, I wish the Nats did NOT give Stras that deal. Aces are incredibly rare and he showed he was totally worth it when a team with less than 95 wins beat out multiple 100+ win teams in the playoffs.
Adding an extra $100 mil would NOT have even come close to just getting Cole.
A)Cole would need to want to come to DC and
b)you honestly think the Yanks would just be like “oh darn!”? They would counter with even more, way more c)Cole could just as easily go down with a major injury over the next 10 YEARS!
Yeah, and with Rendon only getting $10 million more over the course of his deal, picking the older starter over the younger every day third baseman looks even more strange.
Rendon isn’t that young.
He only said that he’s younger than Strasburg, which is true as he’s younger by two years.
Rendon is 2 years younger than Strasburg. — ? That’s a desperate argument to make if you believe signing Rendon was the better move.
Rendon was never staying in DC.
This.
To all those saying Strasburg was the better signing you should note that the ONLY reason they chose him over Rendon was because they didn’t think they had a realistic shot at retaining Rendon and they had to lock down one of the two or lose fans. If the Nats had a realistic choice, it would have been Rendon.
Have seen nothing over the past 12 months to suggest that the Nationals’ “realistic choice” between the 2 was Rendon and not Strasburg. Press accounts showed they went hard after both, which any club would’ve done. Strasburg had met with the Yankees and Dodgers, so it was not a shoo in that he was returning. They made Rendon an offer where the $$ were extended way into the future, which is not exactly a sign that he was a priority over Stras.
I give the Nats credit, they stick to their guns
This is how they want to roll, 3 Sps that can win any game they take the mound
Im sure there were multiple bidders at 5 years and maybe another at 6 – When they went 7 it meant the pursuit was over and sometimes its just as simple as that-
For the record I don’t like the contract either but Im sure a lot of us said the same thing about Corbin/Harper in 19′ and thats off to a splendid start so far for the Nationals
and “sticking to their guns” might have cost them
Sure, and you could get hit by a car driving to work today but does that mean your not going to drive to work?
“This is how they want to roll, 3 Sps that can win any game they take the mound”.
Agree. This season teams are faced with more doubleheaders and crazy “28 games in 30 days” schedules”, so you need starters to go deep to preserve these bullpen guys. After 15 games, Washington’s bullpen is already fried because starters are not going deep.
Yea nobody really has enough pitching to over come this schedule this year-
I applaud them for trying but Im not going to take much away from this season moving forward….. except maybe Soto is actually BETTER than I thought which is amazing since I was already saying he was better than Harper/Machado a year ago in here and getting ripped a new one daily
Soto is everything that Harper should’ve been. The kid hasnt even played LF for 2 full seasons yet he runs better routes and is better with the glove than Harper. And he even manages to hit cutoff men, too.
It’s almost already trade deadline season, what a weird year.
Watch Jed sign with LA and hit .290 and bat 4th and play 150 games next year.
Or the Yankees and bat .300 in 155 games
Both of you are adventurous thinking we are getting 100 games plus next year
Why not? One of these vaccines has to be the real deal.
He’ll go back to Oakland.
Continuing the cycle.
Mets
Braves
Phillies
Nats
Marlins
Next week my prediction probably changes
Looking thru the world in Mets colored glasses again I see. Why stop there, The Mets will win the World Series this year, too.
The Mets, Nats and Phillies are all terrible. Braves, Marlins, the rest.
The Marlins are so much more fun to watch than the Phillies.
Honestly, if DeGrom isn’t hurt I can see the Mets turning things around. The Phillies and Braves are in the same spot with horrible starting pitching. The Nats have too many unproven players in the field that are all ‘supposedly great’, The Marlins are playing above their talent level, but you can tell they are winning because they are having fun. Kudoes to them for that.
The Braves are about to start a free fall (and I am a Braves fan mind you). Acuna and Albies being hurt is really hurting the lineup. The guys that were lighting the fire while those two got off to bad starts are now starting to slow down a bit, so offense is struggling. And, even if the offense were doing better, the Braves front office continues to give chances to pitchers that probably should be out of them.
Of note:
– Folty, Newk and Touki are not even SP5’s at this point. Maybe the Braves are trying to rebuild their value, but I think they should find a team with similar players struggling and just see if a change of scenery swap yields results.
– Wright and Wilson are next two up. I actually think they are both already better than the above three, but these guys deserve more than one or two starts before being benched. So tired of the Braves giving them one or two starts and then sending them down. Let them roll. Look back at Glavine and Maddux for examples of HOF’ers that took a year or two to put it together and stop messing with these kids learning curve. They have nothing to gain against AAA bats.
– Let’s see what Ynoa, Weigel and Davidson can do before next year when they will have Anderson, Muller, and Schuster raring to go.
I have a stinking suspicion the Braves will instead start giving starts to Tomlin, or more starts to random guys like Chacin. I would rather them go with a Rays sort of thing and run out a string of guys than run out old dudes with no real future in Atlanta. And deepest respects to Tomlin, as he has pitched very well and is only getting thrown in here due to the backup of young arms not getting serious opportunities.
The Mets need Alonso, McNeil and Ramos to start hitting (and Rosario, to a lesser extent due to Gimenez playing well). But more than anything else, they need somebody other than DeGrom and Peterson to be adequate out of the rotation.
If those things happen, I don’t think it’s out of the question for them to get in.
I don’t think Newcombe should ever start another game, but to say that Wilson and Wright are already better than he, Folty, or Toussaint is ridiculous. Those 3 have actually gotten major league hitters out. Kyle Wright pitches like Matt Wisler 2.0 and Bryce Wilson is a 2 pitch pitcher with a fastball straight as a string, who seems better suited for the bullpen. If Folty regains his velocity, he’s miles better than those 2 guys. And Touki has shown more as a starter as well, last start notwithstanding. And the reason they continually get shuttled back and forth between Atlanta and AAA is because they’ve consistently failed when given numerous opportunities.
To reduce injury risk, Strasburg starting pitching exclusively from the stretch a few years back, which cut down on pressure to the arm/neck/back. He also became a workout fiend too — the guy now has shoulders on top of his shoulders. He logged innings in the reg season, playoffs, WS last year that were insane. If the Nats did not re-sign him last Fall because of a “worry” about injuries, it would have been laughable. You sign ANY pitcher in his 30s, than expect injuries.
Nothing bad could come from waiting for Strasburg to be at full strength before stepping back on the mound this season. I admire the tenacity of wanting to get out there and play, but this won’t be 30-start season for any SP. If a player or manager is “a little concerned,” don’t start him.
I understand the drive to put the best team on the field, but I’d rather have a healthy roster for a (hopefully) full 2021 season than rush a recovery in this weird 2020 season. I don’t know the scoop – did Strasburg push to get out there? – but regardless. I, from my recliner, say to take your time.
I see that someone is trying to break into comedy writing.
“it’s clear the Mets can’t count on Lowrie to emerge as a late-season reinforcement.
Stephen Strasburg needs to have his neck stretched. I had that problem and neck traction cleared it right up.
With $35M/yr. invested into Strasburg, I’m sure they have exhausted every possible treatment for his ailment including neck stretching.
This is why the A’s did not resign Lowrie, even though they had a clear hole at 2nd base and Lowrie wanted to stay. They knew, based on his injury history, that his next contract would be large and that he likely wouldn’t stay healthy through it.. He came off a great year and he deserved a payday, but Lowrie goes through cycles where he can’t stick on the field.