Christopher Hanewinckel-USA TODAY Sports
On a night where most eyes were likely on a Washington Nationals phenom at the plate and in the outfield, it was the team’s other young star on the mound who rebounded most impressively from a shaky outing.
Yes, Bryce Harper did crush a home run (sorry I doubted you, Bryce) in the team’s 6-2 victory over the San Diego Padres, and in doing so alleviated many worries from Nats fans that he was still banged up; that said, it was undoubtedly Stephen Strasburg‘s own return to form on the mound that played a bigger role in the game.
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It wasn’t perfect, he didn’t put up gaudy strikeout totals and it came against the largely punchless Friars, but the Nats ace threw what was arguably his best game of the 2013 season thus far, after a five-inning, four-run (unearned) relative struggle his last time out.
What makes this better than his dominant 2013 debut?
The biggest thing is that he went deeper in to the game than he’d done in 2013, going eight strong innings while allowing just one earn runs (two total) on three hits, three walks, and striking out four. Stras needed 117 pitches to do it (a season-high), but that he got by with a 65.2 percent ground ball rate (also a season-high) instead of relying on his strikeout ability played a big part in his success.
That’s not to see he couldn’t get the strikeout when he needed though, as the 24-year-old showed in the sixth inning after getting into some trouble. He’d given up a double and a walk to start the inning, and an eventual throwing error plus a groundout left an unearned run scored with runner on second and third with two outs.
This is Stephen Strasburg, though, and while he’s shown that he can get outs by grounders, this was a situation where a strikeout would be cleaner. Three pitches later, he got Will Venable to strike out swinging on a changeup to end the threat.
Though it might seem counter-intuitive to some, it’s really no small coincidence that his best two starts — his 2013 debut on Opening Day and his latest on Thursday — were also the two starts in which he struck out the fewest batters, at three and four respectively. Though he still owns a good 8.63 K/9, the evolution of Strasburg as a pitcher, as it has been with other strikeout artists before him, is the ability to adapt when necessary.
With a career-low 16.5 percent line drive rate and a career-high 48.7 percent ground ball rate and 11.7 percent infield hits rate, the Nationals ace is doing just that in his first full season without an innings cap.
It hasn’t always been a smooth ride, and the learning process will certainly continue even with his kind of stuff; but considering that he’s carrying a 2.83/1.12 ERA/WHIP that’s improved from his 2012 numbers already … I think we can safely say that he’s coming right along.
