Strasburg Stays Perfect
Even though the home runs were the main storyline in last night’s game, Strasburg put together another great performance on the mound. The Nats’ right-hander went 6.2 innings, gave up two runs on four hits, struck out 11, and walked two on 108 pitches (74 strikes).
Strasburg had all of his pitches working last night as he threw 16 first pitch strikes to the 26 batters he faced and struck out six of the first nine batters. He made one mistake in the fourth inning when he left a 2-1 fastball over the middle of the plate to Asdrubal Cabrera, who would hit a solo home run to right.
Out of the 11 strikeouts that Strasburg had, five of them ended with a fastball. The most important strikeout of the night was his last one when he got rookie Ty Kelly to strike out swinging in a nine-pitch at-bat in the top of the seventh. At that point, Kelly was representing the tying run.
After Strasburg’s performance last night, he has now struck out ten or more batters in five of his last ten starts and in three of his last four outings. His 86 strikeouts in eight games are second in the NL behind only Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers (95).
Last night, the Washington Nationals needed a dominant outing from Strasburg after the bad game Gio Gonzalez had on Monday and Strasburg delivered. As Mark Zuckerman of MASN pointed out after the game, Strasburg’s numbers since the second half of last season have been outstanding:
Strasburg's last 23 starts (since returning from neck injury):
— Mark Zuckerman (@MarkZuckerman) May 25, 2016
16-2, 2.22 ERA, 149.2 IP, 105 H, 37 ER, 30 BB, 196 K
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