Max Scherzer thrilled Nationals fans, but Stephen Strasburg is the true ace to embrace
Words By Jeffrey Anderson, Photo by Tess Mazzucchelli
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The once-every-five days greeting among fans of the Washington Nationals—“Merry Strasmas!”—never landed quite right on the ear. But the point was never lost:
When Stephen Strasburg pitched, fans expected to receive a gift, the gift of witnessing brilliance. The fact that most nights the Nationals stood a good chance of winning behind him was a bonus.
Even before his first press conference, the hype was so frenzied it was as if he was headed to Cooperstown before he ever took the mound in a big league game.
Instead, to the dismay of the Nationals organization, the fans and no doubt Strasburg himself, he embarked on a career as legendary for his injuries as for his prodigious talent and accomplishments. It was staggering but hardly unimaginable recently when his third major surgery in 12 seasons further marred his career—with five years and $200 million dollars left on his 2019 contract extension.
Strasburg’s latest misfortune has been overshadowed by the trade of Max Scherzer, who blew out of town on a frantic gust of wind and within days was propelling the Los Angeles Dodgers with a sweaty masterpiece, in crisp white and blue in the dry summer heat of Chavez Ravine.
Good for Max. Good for the Dodgers.
Megastars like Scherzer never stay anymore. They almost always leave. *For every Ryan Zimmerman, there’s three Bryce Harpers. It’s a business, the media reminds us on a near-constant basis.
The Nationals once took a shot with a graceful but thought-to-be injury-prone prospect named Anthony Rendon. Seven years after his big league debut, however, approaching free agency while having the best year of his career, the All-Star and two-time Silver Slugger signaled that he was playing for all the marbles when he coyly said to a reporter that when you visit a car dealership, it’s only natural to want to go for a test drive.
Harper himself, hyped as much if not more than Strasburg, sat for months on a $300 million offer from the Nationals in his free agent year, then flirted a bit with the team’s owners until he got his price from the Philadelphia Phillies, who signed him for 13 years. (Call it a life sentence, if you will.)
Scherzer, a hyper-competitive adrenaline junkie and Fantasy Football fanatic, declared earlier this season that “I know what I’m worth,” and essentially said that when a player is in his position team owners have no choice but to compete for his services. “There’s nothing they can do about it,” he said at the time.
They all leave. Most of ‘em. Not Stephen Strasburg.
Over-hyped phenoms like Strasburg generally do not pan out. Rarely do they end up as World Series MVP, either. If he were to never throw another pitch, the loss of Strasburg should be what Nats fans should lament before shedding a tear to see “Mad Max” take it on the road.
Obviously it’s not an either/or proposition, but the fact remains that in the hearts of those who cheer for the hometown team, even though less statistically prolific and probably not destined for the Hall of Fame, Stras is the pitcher to be most adored in D.C. for two reasons:
He delivered a World Series Championship, in 2019, and when he had a chance to leverage his star value, he stayed a National. (A well-compensated one, thanks to the brilliant foresight of super-agent Scott Boras to negotiate something called a “rolling opt-out” back in 2016.)
The seven-year extension Strasburg signed after being named MVP of the series was exorbitant. It even felt a tad risky. Let’s face it: You always held your breath when his shoulders slumped, he got that familiar, dejected look, and signaled to the dugout that “something doesn’t feel right.”
You knew from experience, it likely was no minor problem.
And so it was a cruel but not unforeseen development when Strasburg’s career-altering surgery, for something called Thoracic Outlet Syndrome, ended a season that never really started for him.
But if you are looking to make sense of it all, and to remind yourself of who to put on a pedestal someday, wind back the clock to his first start in a Nationals uniform—the only uniform he will ever wear—on June 8, 2010, against the Pittsburgh Pirates, and then take stock of his true legacy.
The buzz, the anticipation, was off the charts for his nationally televised debut. Strasburg did not disappoint, treating Nats fans to seven innings, 14 strikeouts, no walks, and just two runs allowed. “Merry Strasmas!”
The giddiness did not last. In swift succession, he landed on the 15-day disabled list with right shoulder inflammation; the 15-day disabled list with right arm flexor strain; the 60-day disabled list with a damaged elbow; finally, he underwent Tommy John surgery.
All within six months.
Strasburg had pitched a mere 68 innings and posted a 5-3 record with a 2.91 ERA. Given how common Tommy John surgery is these days, it was tempting to shrug it off and say, “Hey, better to get it out of the way early in his career.” After all, he was still only 22.
Stras missed almost all of 2011 to rehab, coming back to pitch just 24 innings in September that year. Nevertheless, he was superb, striking out 24 batters, walking two, and yielding four earned runs and no homers.
In 2012, the world got to see what he could really do: In 28 starts, he went 15-6 with a 3.16 ERA over 159 innings, striking out an average of 11 batters per game. He allowed just 1.15 runners per inning, using up fewer than four pitches per batter he faced, for an average of 16 pitches per inning. Opposing teams hit .230 against him, and he posted a .714 winning percentage.
A quality start is defined as giving up three runs or fewer in a game. Strasburg made one 20 times that year. He was so good the Nationals, realizing what they had on their hands, and taking into account all he had been through, shut him down for the playoffs so as to not overtax his surgically repaired right elbow. Fans were upset over this.
Regardless of the setbacks and controversies—and pressure to live up to the hype—Strasburg proved over the next seven seasons that 2012 was no fluke.
In 246 starts in his major league career, he has made a quality start roughly two-thirds of the time, allowing on the average slightly more than one runner per inning for a career winning percentage of .649.
In 12 seasons—three of which he either didn’t pitch or barely pitched at all—the tall, gangly, shy, would-be Hall of Famer threw the baseball 23,316 times. For every 1,000 pitches he threw, 650 of them were for strikes.
Of course it is indisputable that Scherzer has posted better numbers, won more awards and been more durable.
Signed in 2015, Scherzer went 91-47 for the Nationals with an ERA of 2.80 while averaging 28 starts and 222 innings per season. He won two Cy Young Awards, threw two no-hitters and appeared in six consecutive All-Star Games—three as a starter.
Legendary for his maniacal training regime, Scherzer, now on his fourth team in 14 seasons, will be inducted into the Hall of Fame on the first ballot for which he is eligible.
Strasburg likely will not, for along with an injury-plagued career has come withering scrutiny and criticism, and suggestions that he’s a hot-house flower or some porcelain luxury item. There’s some cause for this perception, however unkind it may be.
Beginning in 2013, just his second full season in the majors, after already having had Tommy John surgery, Strasburg went on the 10-day DL six times; he went on the 15-day DL another five; and in 2020, a year in which he started just two games, he went on the 60-day DL before undergoing carpal tunnel surgery.
Indeed, Strasburg endured a tortuous early start to his career, and has been MIA since hoisting the World Series trophy in 2019. Many fans—including myself—questioned his worth more than once in his career, wary that he would never meet the expectations the media had heaped on him.
But people tend to forget that from 2012 through 2019, he was a stud, comparable to Scherzer in a number of categories. A transformation had taken place while people were writing him off: Sensing a need to adapt his lower body to support the mechanics of his four-pitch arsenal, he had morphed from a lanky flamethrower into an imposing yet elegant beast—one of the elite hurlers in the sport.
Better than admiring his numbers was the sheer joy of marveling as he developed as a pitcher and as a National. It was something to behold after he’d dial up a soul-crushing breaking ball for a third strike to end the inning, then bounce off the mound and jog to the dugout bobbing like a gazelle—with fire hydrants for thighs.
His demeanor never gave it away, but Stras had clearly become determined to prove the critics wrong.
And he did.
In 2019, after establishing himself as a workhorse, he led the National League in wins and innings pitched, ranked second with 251 strikeouts and fifth in runners allowed per inning, and went 18-6 with a 3.32 ERA.
Strasburg was even more dominant in the postseason, which is part of why he will always be the definitive National pitcher. Consider what he did, just two years ago, in the World Series alone:
He started and won both Game 2 and Game 6 for the Nationals—on the road, in Houston—going six innings and giving up two runs in Game 2, and an astounding 8 ⅓ innings in Game 6, giving up another two runs, to finish the series with a 2.51 ERA.
For the series, Strasburg threw more than 14 innings, gave up just 12 hits and three walks, and struck out 14. He was magnificent, from start to finish.
Now pull back the lens and consider what he did over the entire postseason, the Nationals’ dizzying month-long march to fall greatness on the heels of one of the most amazing and improbable comeback seasons in major league history: He became the first pitcher in history to go 5-0, giving up 30 hits and nine runs, finishing with a 1.98 ERA, with just four walks and 47 strikeouts.
But it’s the night of October 1, 2019, that has earned Stephen Strasburg the most endearing place in the hearts of Nationals fans since the team came to town in 2005.
Strasburg in 2019 was not just at his best; he was the best Nationals starter, period. He pitched more innings, won more games and made more quality starts than anyone, including Scherzer, the presumptive ace of the staff whose fiery aura and fierce intensity preceded him like no other.
Though Scherzer had missed six weeks due to back and shoulder strains, and Strasburg was healthy and in full command on the mound, Manager Dave Martinez went with Scherzer to start what would become the most crucial game in Nationals history.
The Nats had one shot to get into the playoffs in 2019, against the Milwaukee Brewers, a “play-in” to see who would qualify as the Wild Card in the National League East Division Series. It was win or go home.
The decision to go with Scherzer did not come easily for Martinez. There was enormous pressure to go with Strasburg. For once, Max was the one who looked like the lesser of the two going into that game.
Sure enough, in the first inning, Scherzer gave up a two-run homer; Then, in the second, he gave up a solo shot that put the Nats in a 3-0 hole. To his credit, he gutted out three more innings and kept ‘em in the game.
The sight of Strasburg coming out of the bullpen to start the sixth inning is a moment that no one who was there that night will ever forget. Here was a star-crossed, former phenom having the best year of his career, pitching more than 200 innings, and now making his first career relief start, with absolutely no margin for error.
The result: Three innings, four strikeouts, two hits and zero runs. A clutch performance for the ages. A selfless, quietly dramatic appearance that left diehard Nats fans convinced that anything was possible.
The bottom of the eighth inning was a blur. After Strasburg had blanked the Brewers, a two-out knock by Juan Soto got by the right fielder and plated three runs for a 4-3 lead; once the beer showers settled, closer Daniel Hudson came on for the ninth and recorded three uneventful outs and the Nationals advanced.
General Manager Mike Rizzo summed it up: “You’re talking about big-boy baseball right there. You’re talking about your horse that you’re relying on. Stephen came out and did it for the name on the front of the jersey more than the name on the back. That’s the type of pitcher he’s been since he got here.”
I suppose that’s what makes Strasburg the consummate Nationals great. No one can match Scherzer’s statistics and accomplishments. No one can come close to the manic energy he brought to the mound every time he took the ball. But Scherzer cannot claim what Strasburg can claim: Stras is a National. Always has been. Always will be.
And when given the opportunity to put the team on his back when it really counted, he delivered the first title to Washington in a season probably never to be equaled.
Here’s hoping he makes it back to give it a try.
*This column has been updated to remove an error. Tigers’ longtime first baseman Miguel Cabrera started his career with the Marlins. The Dig regrets this Bush League mistake.
