=== Strasburg's Fastball ===

Just getting loose, Strasburg airmailed the first two pitches of the game in at 97 mph.  He was just getting loose.  I rarely noticed him drop to 97 again.  He sat 98-99 and threw plenty of 100's.

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But don't get distracted by the radar gun.  Strasburg's fastball might as well have been 110.  Randy Johnson and Nolan Ryan threw 97-98 fastballs that looked completely different from Daniel Cabrera or JJ Putz fastballs.

I don't know what it is -- deception, or a difference in the delta of the velocity as the pitch travels, or what, but there are some guys who throw 97-98 and hitters just cannot swing in time.

Wood had that.  Randy Johnson had it.  Nolan Ryan had it.  No matter how high the batter dialed up his bat, the ball was still by them.  And that's why you saw hitters swinging at the ball two feet over their heads.

It was the same with Kerry Wood in 1998, and it will be the same with Strasburg.  They just can't swing in time.

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It's not just my opinion, wearing horn-rimmed glasses behind the monitor (so to speak).  Joe Morgan has explained this on TV a few times.  He commented during the 1995 Angels playoff:  with Randy Johnson, you just do not have enough time to decide whether to swing.

With Strasburg, they don't have enough time.  Not unless they want to swing before they know whether it's a strike.

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=== Strasburg's Slider ===

... or curve, or whatever they call it.

As with Wood, the reason it is plus-plus-plus is NOT the break, and also is NOT the fact that the fastball sets it up.  Strasburg's slider would be devastating if his fastball were 89 mph.

Strasburg has a true tight-spin David Cone slider that comes out of his hand looking just like a fastball.  It's not even the change of speed as such that is the problem:  it is that his hand and arm show 99 mph and the ball just pops a parachute and isn't there.

True, it rolls off the top of the table on them.  True, it doesn't matter whether he throws it up or down.  There was no such thing as a "hanging slider" for Kerry Wood, and there won't be for Strasburg.

But the real problem is that it's a Trevor Hoffman change pitch:  it comes out of his hand looking completely different from the arm action.

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=== Intersection ===

So what do you do, when you get two pitches, both of which you're defenseless against?  That's the Strasburg Syndrome.

My favorite AB was the last one of the night, to Andy LaRoche:

• High slider, come and get it, right down the pipe -- FREEZE HIM 0-1
• Low slider, bear pitch, garbage swing over the top, never saw it -- 0-2
• 99 ladder pitch, 2 inches above the zone -- swinging K looked like that game-ender in the first Unit no-hitter

Visualize that sequence from LaRoche's point of view for a minute.  On 0-2, what are you defending?  And then, what comes in at you on 0-2?

It's beyond human capacity to deal with that sequence.

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Strasburg will give up runs, because hitters will go up looking for certain pitches in certain parts of the zone, and they'll make contact.  All LaRoche could have done was gone up saying, ok, if I get slider down, I'm going to dig it out, if not, called strikes, tip your cap.  Sometimes that will work.

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There will be a few games where he only strikes out 6 guys, as was the case with Nolan Ryan and Randy Johnson.  Some days he'll throw 95-96; some days he'll be a bit wild or squeezed by the ump.  All pitchers lose.

His overall ERA might not be any better than, say, Randy Johnson's or Pedro's or somebody's.  But you better enjoy the show, 'cause you never know how long an elbow ligament is going to hold up.

Am I ever-loving' glad that dude is in the National League.

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Cheers,

Dr D