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For the first time in 2016, Washington Nationals’ Stephen Strasburg showing he’s human

By Pablo Roa

Aug 12, 2016; Washington, DC, USA; Washington Nationals starting pitcher Stephen Strasburg (37) leaves the field after being removed from the game during the sixth inning at Nationals Park. Mandatory Credit: Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports
Aug 12, 2016; Washington, DC, USA; Washington Nationals starting pitcher Stephen Strasburg (37) leaves the field after being removed from the game during the sixth inning at Nationals Park. Mandatory Credit: Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports /
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After losing two straight for the first time all season, Washington Nationals ace Stephen Strasburg is finally showing signs that he might be human.

Every baseball player, every season, goes through a slump — a rough patch over a few games (or sometimes much longer) that ultimately proves to be an outlier for what has otherwise been a great season. Washington Nationals ace Stephen Strasburg is no exception.

Then again, it’s hard to chalk up the last couple of games for Strasburg as a “slump.” After all, he’s been so incredibly dominant all year long that it seems unfair to judge a couple of rough outings as anything more than two microscopic blimps in his season, which happened to occur on back to back outings.

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But Strasburg’s last two starts — a span in which he went 0-2 while allowing 15 hits and 10 earned runs over just 10 innings — is by far his worst two-game stint of the season. So, in the context of Strasburg’s Cy Young-caliber 2016 season, it’s probably fair to characterize his last couple of starts as a mini-slump.

Regardless of whether or not you characterize it as a slump, Strasburg’s last two starts help us appreciate just how dominant he’s been this season. After all, the man has three losses all season long, and two of them came over a span of two games in the middle of August. August.

Strasburg wasn’t going to be perfect all season long. Despite of how great he’s been, the law of averages dictates that he would, eventually, go through a rough spell just like every other player does.

Fortunately for the Nationals, Strasburg is showing signs of “weakness” in August, not in October. And based on what we’ve seen from him all season long, there’s no reason to believe that he’ll go into any sort of prolonged slump.

The Nationals are more than fortunate to have Strasburg on their team, and on the mound every fifth day. He’s been one of the team’s most important players this season, and there’s no doubt he’ll continue to be so in the coming weeks and months.

But as his last two starts show, he’s human, and he won’t be lights out every time he takes the mound. Fortunately for the Nationals, he doesn’t have to be.

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