Stephen Strasburg proves to Cincinnati he’s the real deal

You guys wanted to see Stephen Strasburg. Guess what? We got Stephen Strasburg. He sold out our stadium. His t-shirts were sold in the team shop. He came into town, fanned 7 Reds hitters, and left 5-2 on his rookie season with the Reds lying in the wake another game back of the Cardinals.We hope you enjoyed the show. Strasburg mania. It wasn’t quite as fun as we thought it would be. But hey, at least we saw it in person.

Game was televised nationally on ESPN’s Wednesday Night Baseball. My roommate and girlfriend were watching it on television and said that they announcers commented that Strasburg had turned this sell-out crowd and stadium into a very different environment then normal.

I’ll say this, the kid is the real deal. At first I thought that this start would be what some of his better starts would be like. But it turns out he comes out and pitches this way (still dominant at times) and people are surprised he didn’t strike out a dozen hitters.

The guy is advanced more then most of the great pitchers in baseball who have been here for 5 or 6 years; and he’s one of those rare guys of which you’d ‘pay money to see’. Other guys on that list are the special guys: Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver, Clemens pre-juice, Steve Carlton, Randy Johnson, Walter Johnson. Great power pitchers of the past. Strasburg should be right there someday if he stays healthy..

Strasburg was between 95-99 for his 5 and 2/3 innings of work last night. He didn’t touch 100 or go over 100 even once in the game. On this humid night when your glasses would fog out after walking out of air conditioning, he definitely had enough gas in the tank to really neutralize the Reds hitters and give the Nationals a chance to win the game.

I’ve been hard on Jay Bruce lately but I have to admit he looked decent against Strasburg. He had a hard lineout and two solid singles off him. Since Jay is primarily a singles hitter now, this is good. This is definitely the type of guy you just want to collect hits off of. The problem is, Jay singles off turds as well now too.

I remember Adam Dunn had a lot of success against Roger Clemens (7 for 16 lifetime). Maybe Bruce and Strasburg have a long career like this ahead–where Bruce gets the edge.

Here’s video of the first pitch of the game to Brandon Phillips. I also shot some zapruder film of the first time Votto and Strasburg went head to head. So yeah, nothing exciting in either one of these videos, but that’s him. That’s really him. Stephen Strasburg. Throwing gas, in Cincinnati on a hot July night in 2010.

Definitely proved why he’s worth millions of dollars on a home weekend pitching in Washington.