Washington Nationals News: How Stephen Strasburg got back to being an ace
By Pablo Roa
Good afternoon DoD readers, and welcome to today’s District Daily. Get caught up on the latest Nats news and opinions with some great Washington Nationals articles from around the web below.
In today’s Daily, MLB.com’s Mike Petriello discusses Stephen Strasburg and how the Nationals’ right-hander has turned his season around and returned to ace-form.
In what has been an otherwise disappointing season for the Nationals, Strasburg’s reemergence as a dominant part of the rotation has been one of the few bright spots of the year. Of course, it hasn’t always been that way. Strasburg struggled mightily early on as he dealt with issues on the mound and various injuries.
But, in recent weeks, the right-hander has looked a lot more like the dominant ace we expected to see coming out of Spring Training. In his last seven starts, Strasburg is 5-1 with a 1.51 ERA and 50 strikeouts.
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For a long time, it looked like 2015 would be a year to forget for the former No. 1 overall draft pick. Now, however, it looks like he’s turned his year around and doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon. Hopefully for the Nationals, Strasburg can maintain his dominant form for the rest of this season and carry it over into 2016.
Also in today’s Daily, Dan Steinberg of the Washington Post discusses some interesting comments made by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred regarding the ongoing dispute between the Nationals and MASN.
Be sure to check out both articles below, they’re definitely worth a read. And as always, stay tuned to DoD for all your Washington Nationals needs.
How Strasburg got back to being an ace
This is shaping up to be a pretty disappointing season for the Washington Nationals, and that seemingly goes double for Stephen Strasburg, who has visited the disabled list twice this year and carried an ERA north of 5.00 into July. Even now, he still has an unsightly 4.22 mark, the second worst of the six Washington pitchers with at least 10 starts, and higher than 84 other pitchers who have thrown at least 80 innings this year. As the Nationals have watched their playoff odds sink from 89 percent in early July to under 8 percent on Thursday, the seemingly subpar season from Strasburg has looked like a big reason why.
Now, it’s fair to say that when we look back on Strasburg’s career, 2015 won’t stand out among his best. Read full article here.
MLB commissioner says ‘nobody’ foresaw MASN squabbles when deal was made
(Dan Steinberg, Washington Post)
The MASN dispute — which constantly bubbles beneath the surface of most big-picture stories about the Nationals — is likely to surface again when people are telling the story of the team’s thus-far disappointing 2015 season. It already came up in Thomas Boswell’s late-August autopsy of the Nationals.
"The Nats confront a disintegrating season that has combined awful play by stars, uninspired, inexperienced managing and perpetual injury to everyone in sight. Nervous ownership’s natural concerns often arrive as novice nagging.Add to that the large lost opportunity cost of all the scandalous years of delay in settling the backroom (and now legal) brawl over how many scores of millions of dollars MASN, the Orioles-owned cable network, has managed to avoid paying the Nats."
Read full article here.
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