Sean Doolittle was a minor leaguer sitting in a sports bar in Arizona on June 8, 2010, watching the debut of a much-hyped young pitcher in Washington named Stephen Strasburg.
“If you saw that, you remember where you were,” said Doolittle, the former Washington Nationals reliever and now pitching strategist. “That was unforgettable.”
Everyone who was in soldout Nationals Park that day likely remembers. The hype, for once, was real. Strasburg, Washington’s No. 1 draft pick in 2009, struck out 14 Pittsburgh Pirates in seven innings on his way to a 5-2 win.
Strasburg couldn’t always deliver on the promise of 2010. The following years were marked by a seemingly endless series of injuries, and the physical toll eventually ended his career.
Still, the moments of excellence added up as the big righthander shined in the postseason and cemented his name in franchise lore forever as the Most Valuable Player of the Nationals’ 2019 World Series championship.
It was that Strasburg people chose to remember Sunday at Nationals Park as news spread that the 35-year-old was announcing his retirement after struggling to get back on the mound over the last four years — four years when he struggled to post a 1-4 record with a 6.89 ERA over just 31 innings.
The focus Sunday was on the 113-62 record over 13 seasons, with a 3.24 ERA, 1,723 strikeouts, three All-Star Games and the World Series title. It particularly shone brightly on the 6-2 record in nine postseason appearances, with a 1.46 ERA.
“A playoff beast. I hope when people look back at his career and talk about [that],” Doolittle said.
“They talk about the contract. That’s BS. The expectations for him when he came here were so incredibly high,” Doolittle said. “Appreciate what he did for this franchise, being one of the premiere pitchers in the league and the World Series he helped bring here. You can’t put a price tag on that, what he did for the franchise. At the end, his body just gave out. He couldn’t do it anymore. It wasn’t for lack of will or lack of effort. He is going to have complications with his body for what he did for this franchise. I feel very proud to have been his teammate.”
The complications Doolittle referred to include the damage done to his arm and shoulder that led to surgery to alleviate thoracic outlet syndrome. But his body had broken down so much that there was always something to stop him from returning to his championship form.
“He was in a lot of pain and frustrated,” general manager Mike Rizzo said of Strasburg’s multiple attempts to return to the mound since 2020. “I was here when he threw a bullpen session in the winter before spring training and he came off the mound and couldn’t do it. He would ramp his way up and then when it came time to let loose, he couldn’t do it. He had to make a decision for his health long term moving forward.”
That decision was a complicated one because of the part of the Strasburg legacy Doolittle wishes people would forget — the seven-year, $245 million contract extension Washington gave its superstar in December 2019.
Rizzo wouldn’t speak to the details of how that had been finally worked out after it appeared the pitcher would announce his retirement last summer, only to have the Nationals dismiss those reports and put him on the 60-day injured list.
“I’m not going to get into that stuff,” Rizzo said. “This is a celebration of Strasburg’s career. That’s business. This is personal.”
Doolittle is right — perhaps the worst contract in sports history is not Strasburg’s legacy.
No, that is late owner Ted Lerner’s burden.
The Strasburg contract was a deal hammered out by Ted Lerner and Strasburg’s agent, Scott Boras. The two men bypassed Rizzo and the front office as they had done numerous times before. There was $105 million left on that deal that was still due Strasburg when this season started. As Washington enters perhaps its fifth-straight losing season, it’s hard to simply just wish that contract into a cornfield.
For me, the most fascinating part of Strasburg’s career has been the change in perception. You heard words like “beast” and “horse” Sunday at Nationals Park to describe Strasburg. You didn’t hear those words when he was shut down in late 2012, coming off Tommy John surgery, before Washington’s first postseason series.
You certainly didn’t hear it in his first postseason in 2014, when he was outpitched by Jake Peavy in the opening National League Division Series against the San Francisco Giants and was the target of merciless bench-jockeying by Giants players.
And you didn’t hear it in the 2017 NL division series against the Chicago Cubs, when there were reports he would miss his scheduled start because he was ill. There was speculation that there were questions about his heart inside the organization.
A sick Strasburg, though, took the mound and struck out 12 in seven scoreless innings in a 5-0 win over Chicago in Game 4. The conversation about Strasburg changed after that.
“He was a horse on the mound and would give you everything he had,” manager Davey Martinez said. “He was an incredible competitor. I love the guy.”
Beast. Horse. Competitor. Legend.
• You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.
• Thom Loverro can be reached at tloverro@washingtontimes.com.
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