The question has come up several times over the past week. But each time it has been asked, manager Matt Williams has politely refused to answer.
Williams will not reveal his Game 1 starter until Thursday, when the announcement is mandated by the league. There’s no strategy in the works, he says. It’s simply that he doesn’t know which team the Nationals will be playing. Washington’s opponent is not the deciding factor. But he says it is a factor.
“We’ll analyze that,” Williams said Saturday, “till we can’t analyze it anymore.”
Williams has been coy in his press conferences, but on the field, there is a clear reality. Stephen Strasburg has made sure his manager’s decision will be a relatively easy one.
Strasburg has pieced together a dominant final month of the regular season, finishing it off with six scoreless innings in the Nationals’ 5-1 victory over the Marlins. He allowed two hits, each on balls that were misplayed in the outfield, and struck out seven batters. His next start will almost certainly be in Game 1 of the National League Division Series on Friday.
“I’m really excited,” Strasburg said of pitching in the postseason for the first time in his major league career. “I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing and give it everything I have.”
More than two years after being shut down because of a team-imposed innings limit, Strasburg looks well-prepared for that first postseason start. He walked off the field Saturday with a 3.14 earned-run average, a National League-leading 242 strikeouts and a streak of 20 consecutive scoreless innings across three starts. He has allowed 10 hits and walked three batters during that span.
“Typical Stephen of what we’ve seen all year long,” Williams said. “I think he’s ready for next week.”
Strasburg had never pitched more than 183 innings in a season before this year. Through Saturday, he had thrown 215. He has not allowed an earned run since surpassing the 200-inning mark.
If anything, Strasburg has gotten stronger as the season has gone on. His fastball, which hovered around 93 miles per hour on Opening Day, was 95-98 mph on Saturday.
“I mean, 98, 97, 98, 98, 97 — that’s pretty incredible,” left fielder Bryce Harper said. “That’s what he used to look like when he was in college, being able to pump it up like that for seven, eight innings. That’s pretty impressive.”
Strasburg attributed the extra velocity to comfort. Williams described it as confidence.
“I think when he’s throwing the ball where he wants to, he lets it go,” Williams said. “When he’s not, then he tries to throw it, you know, on the corner. And it’s not 96 or 97. But when he feels good about it, that’s what you see. You see that fastball ramp up, which causes the changeup to be better and the breaking ball to be better.”
While accelerating his fastball, Strasburg also has been able to effectively elevate it in the strike zone. That’s led to devastating sequences like the one Kike Hernandez saw in the second inning: 97-mph fastball away, 96-mph fastball in on the hands, 83-mph curveball down the middle, 82-mph curveball in the dirt and 97-mph fastball up and out of the zone for a swinging strikeout.
With his confidence soaring and those types of sequences at his disposal, Strasburg picked up his 14th win of the season Saturday. In five September starts, he went 3-1 with a 1.13. ERA.
“What’s most impressive for me is his September has been his best,” Williams said Saturday afternoon. “That’s a statement. That’s a big statement for him.”
Washington’s offense followed Strasburg’s lead. The Nationals produced 11 hits, including a three-run surge in the eighth capped by Asdrubal Cabrera’s double to right-center field.
The team’s lineup on Saturday, like its starting pitcher, could be a foreshadow of next week’s postseason opener.
When Strasburg exited, Jerry Blevins continued his recent string of superb outings with a spotless seventh inning. Tyler Clippard followed with a scoreless eighth on a day in which his bobblehead was distributed to fans before the game. Then Drew Storen worked around two errors in a non-save situation in the ninth, allowing one unearned run before closing the door.
The bullpen is surging. Strasburg is surging. And with one regular-season game remaining, the Nationals are surging toward what they hope will be a long postseason run.
“We just feed off each other,” Clippard said. “That’s kind of how pitching and baseball goes. It’s momentum, and once one guy starts rolling, everybody starts rolling. It’s been fun to watch and be a part of it.”
• Tom Schad can be reached at tschad@washingtontimes.com.
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