The news every Nationals and baseball fan didn’t want to hear has just arrived. Stephen Strasburg is likely to have Tommy John surgery bringing his season to an end. This injury not only hurts the Nationals but baseball as a whole. Since the day the young pitcher was drafted the spotlight has been shining bright in his eyes. His pitching did the talking in his first several outing until he first injured his arm and was forced to the DL.
Strasburg’s latest MRI shows a significant tear in his elbow ligament. The surgery takes 12-18 months to rehabilitate from and is another bump in the road for an organization that has shown promise. The youngster who impressed us all in his major league debut by striking out 14 ended his season 5-3 with a 2.91 ERA. The club had planned to shut down Strasburg when he reached 105 innings but he made it to 68 before having to pull the plug. Strasburg learned of his diagnoses Thursday afternoon however the ball club decided not to release the information till this morning because of their new number one draft picks press conference, Bryce Harper. Strasburg is a competitor and he will be back with the Nationals when he is 100% healthy. Its just sad to watch such a young successful pitcher who happens to have the largest rookie contract of all time go down.