UPDATE AT 6:17 P.M. -- The updated story, with quotes from Mike Rizzo, is now up on CSNwashington.com.
The Nationals have promoted Stephen Strasburg to Class AAA Syracuse, and the prize right-hander will make his debut for the Chiefs Friday night against Gwinnett (the Braves' top affiliate).
Here's the story on CSNwashington.com, which will be updated later this afternoon with quotes and more details.
12 comments:
Here is the press release.
http://web.minorleaguebaseball.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100504&content_id=9784338&vkey=pr_t552&fext=.jsp&sid=t552
Mark, in your CSN story you say:
If he remains on a strict, five-day schedule, Strasburg's big-league debut would come June 5 against the Cincinnati Reds.
As my junior high math teacher would have said, I think you need to show your work on this word problem and then maybe I can give you partial credit. Because the correct answer is June 6, not June 5. Sunday, not Saturday.
They should have delayed a few more days so that the Friday games would be sold out for both Harrisburg and Syracuse. Maybe Harrisburg wasn't going to be at home Friday.
The Senators are at home Friday against the Richmond Flying Squirrels. Personally I am glad to see him leave so we can focus on the Senators now instead of Strasburg.
I wonder what the corresponding move will be hopefully they will not send us Colin "little boy" Balester, boy is he pitching lousy this year but whats new.
TBC: You are correct, and I realized the same thing after I posted the original story. It should be fixed up there now, saying Strasburg is lined up to start Sunday, June 6 against the Reds. But again, I'd caution everyone against buying tickets based purely on that. The Nats could easily move Strasburg around to start a different game, especially if he winds up scheduled for the same day as an established starter, like John Lannan or Livan Hernandez.
Mark, any idea where Arnoldis Chapman is in his development and ascension through the minors? Wouldn't it be great to see a Strasburg vs. Chapman duel at Nats Park in June?
I argued on NJ that if he pitches well at Syracuse in his first three they should bring him and let him pitch on Saturday night May 22 against the Os at Nats Park. There's no magic about holding him back until June since he is going to get sent back down to the minors after he reaches a total of 150 innings pitched. I'd rather see him pitch two more games as a Nat than leave him with the Chief all month.
Section 222 - The magic is to avoid his gaining "Super 2" status. Pushing this into May should eliminate any chance of that. Thus, he'd only go to arbitration 3 times rather than 4 times.
There's no magic about holding him back until June since he is going to get sent back down to the minors after he reaches a total of 150 innings pitched.
No he's not. Rizzo has said that once they bring him up, they're not sending him back. Also, come Sept 1 minor league seasons are over so there's nowhere to send him back down to. They'll shut him down after 150-160 innings, but he'll still be on the major league roster for the rest of the season and that time will still count towards his super-two status.
Great to hear hopefully SS starts at sometime during the Reds series I have tickets to all 3 games so my bases are covered! Chapman vs Straburg would be awesome!!
rizzo has said that he wants strasburg pitching *into september* so he can experience the difference in september baseball when they're playing teams in the hunt. (essentially, paraphrasing)
From what I hear about Chapman it sounds like he's nowhere near as polished as Strasburg. He has command issues and has had a few bad games (much worse than Strasburg's) and can't really pace himself in terms of velocity or keep his pitch count down. Plus his secondary pitches (changeup, curveball, etc.) are not up to the standard set by his fastball. Reports indicate that while his raw stuff is definitely major-league ready and he could come up as a dominant reliever / potential closer at any time, if the Reds are serious about using him as a starter he's going to need significantly more development time. So it's unlikely we see a Strasburg-Chapman matchup for awhile.
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