The Washington Nationals are on top of the NL East after a hot 7-3 start, but that’s missing what’s important: Nationals Park is now offering a gross $60 dollar cheeseburger named after Stephen Strasburg. Because “burg”, get it.

Weighing eight pounds total (including toppings), the StrasBurger is a monstrous all beef burger (combination of ground brisket, chuck and short ribs). The burger is served on a large burger bun with our secret sauce, American cheese, shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes, sliced red onions, pickle chips and served with a cone basket of fresh cut fries and a pitcher of your choice of soft drink. This signature dish is the perfect entrée to share at this affordably-priced family restaurant.

Today’s Dugout explores the whos, whats, whens, wheres and (most importantly) whys of the Strasburger. Reader discretion is advised.

Also, Pepto Bismol is advised.

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When Stephen Strasburg blew out his arm last August, MASN analyst and former big leagues pitcher Rob Dibble told him to “suck it up” and play through the pain. When Strasburg’s rehabilitation from Tommy John surgery started moving ahead of schedule, Dibble said there was absolutely no reason to bring Strasburg back. The reason I bring this up is because that is a picture of Stephen Strasburg dressed as Papa Smurf from “The Smurfs”, and right now Dibble is hunched over his computer somewhere hammering out a paragraph about how the Nationals front office has no idea what they’re doing, and how the Snorks, specifically Tooter Snork, would’ve been a much better choice. Because Strasburg isn’t ready to be Allstar. Uh, cough.

According to the Nationals, this is the best thing that has ever happened.

“This is what baseball is about,” Marrero said, “being a rookie and being able to do this with my friends.”

Dress like Smurfs, he meant.

In case you were wondering, yes, that sentence fragment masquerading as a paragraph from the D.C. Sports Blog reports Chris Marrero as having said that “painting yourself blue and pretending to be a Smurf because the veterans made you” is what baseball is all about.

Jayson Werth appeared to be the ringleader, and the Smurf theme song played in continuous loop in the clubhouse during the dressing. F.P. Santangelo said the episode was “definitely” the best rookie hazing he’d ever seen in his baseball life.

I feel like somebody should’ve gotten Jayson Werth to dress up like Gargamel, because getting 10 million dollars to bat .233 is about as helpful to the team as tracking the rookies into the forest and cooking them to death in a cauldron. Maybe next year the rookie hazing theme will be “don’t finish in fourth place”.

[h/t Sportress of Blogitude]

Last year in a game against the Phillies near the end of August, Washington Nationals phenom Stephen Strasburg, a budding superstar with a 2.91 ERA and 92 strikeouts in 68 innings, hurt his arm. MASN analyst and former big leagues pitcher Rob Dibble told him to “suck it up” and do his job. No player is ever 100% healthy, and Strasburg should’ve just went out and pitched again the next night. Stras got checked out and found out he needed elbow surgery, and poof, just like that, he was gone.

Fast forward nearly a year, to the news that Stephen Strasburg will start on Sunday for the Class A Hagerstown Suns, the next major step in a rehabilitation that could see him pitch in Washington in September. Strasburg’s recovery has been going ahead of schedule, and all things considered you could say he was “sucking it up”. So Rob Dibble should be happy, right? Dibble never had a vendetta against the kid, he just disagreed with the situation and maybe misinterpreted some data.

Nope, vendetta.

“There’s absolutely no reason, other than to sell tickets and to put butts in the seats to bring Stephen Strasburg back, to make a few starts at the end of the season. He’s too valuable. He’s too talented to even think about stuff like that. But in their case, you know, having worked with those people, the only thing I can say is that there are some people there that think they invented the game of baseball. Which they did not.

“And so they think they can do things differently than 29 other teams in the game. That’s the problem I had when I was working there, and now, even when I’ve been working on this channel for the last seven years. It’s pretty simple stuff. You want guys to play 15-20 years, you don’t need to rush a guy back just to get a couple starts in so you can sell out the stadium and stuff like that. You know, they’ve been talking about 2012, and what kind of team they’re gonna have in 2012 and stuff like that. And you know, if that’s the case, and you don’t want to put a Bryce Harper in the major leagues until you think he’s ready, there’s really no point in rushing this kid back just to get a couple starts out of him for this year.”

Two major talking points, here:

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The first thing you hear when you click play on this video is people going HE’S COMING, HE’S COMING. Spanish basketball phenom Ricky Rubio rides down an escalator, and the people are all HE’S WEARING A BLAZER AND A SHIRT AND SHOES, AND HE’S WEARING A HAT AND HUMANS ARE NEAR HIM. Seconds later, people are wooing and hooting, and some guy says LOOK AT THE PAGEANTRY. The pageantry of someone wearing clothes and using an escalator to change floors and walking in an airport.

Such is the new life of Rubio, picked fifth overall in the 2009 NBA draft, as he replaces Kent Hrbek and F. Scott Fitzgerald in the (assumedly shared) consciousness of Minnesota. After walking through an airport (and this is not a joke), Fox Sports is writing about how his personality is a defibrillator to a franchise in need of life. Imagine the Minnesota Timberwolves as the Washington Nationals and Rubio as Stephen Strasburg, only Spanish and biting a basketball. Did anybody describe what Strasburg was wearing when he landed in the D.C. airport? Did he have two functioning arms?

I’m hoping Rubio turns out to be a huge deal, just so one of the biggest stars in the NBA will look and act like Chachi from “Happy Days”.

[video via SBN, h/t to our own Cajun Boy]

Washington Nationals right-hander Stephen Strasburg could pitch in 2011, or so says the Twitter of Meridiano Television’s Ivan Arteaga.  Strasburg was put on the shelf in August 2010 when one pitch magically transformed him from the most hyped and closely watched pitching prospect in the history of baseball into the red team’s Mark Prior.  He underwent Tommy John surgery shortly thereafter and was expected to miss the entirety of this season, but the Spanish tweet says otherwise.

Strasburg is regaining arm strength and is throwing from 90 feet on flat ground, but the Nationals’ desperation to rush him and Bryce Harper into starring roles whether they’re ready or not seems like it’s leading to worse things than good.  92 strikeouts in 68 innings, but you eventually want him to break 70, right?  So don’t Dusty Baker him here.  Let his arm heal, and he’ll be ready to be Strasburg again right around the time Harper’s spent two and a half seasons roping line drives into the first baseman’s glove and has turned into a real baseball player.  You guys aren’t the Phils with or without Strasburg, you know?  2011 is not your last season.

I tried to find out more on the Meridiano Television Twitter, but I’m pretty sure they’re just copying and pasting scripts from Destinos.

@ivanarteaga Don Fernando tiene dos hijos.

Does “abogada” mean “baseball player?”  Because if it does, Raquel Rodriguez is a baseball player in Los Angeles.

Stephen Strasburg went on the DL two weeks ago with a swollen vulva soreness in his shoulder. Last night he made his return, and it was far from the impressive efforts that we’d seen out of the Washington Nationals rookie pitcher in previous outings. Strasburg only lasted 4 and 1/3 innings and gave up six earned runs. And then I heard that he locked his keys in his car after the game. I hate it when that happens.

“Not one pitch felt like I controlled it,” Strasburg said. “Just going to chalk it up as a learning experience and go out there and really compete and not worry about things too much next time.”

Dan Uggla drove in four runs with a homer and a double, and Hanley Ramirez hit two of his three doubles off Strasburg (5-3), whose ERA rose from 2.32 to 3.07. The No. 1 overall pick in the 2009 amateur draft had not allowed more than three earned runs or lasted fewer than five innings in any of his previous nine major league games. –Y! Sports.

It’s hard to say that Strasburg is feeling the grind of a major league season when he only plays every fifth day and he just had two weeks off. That said, I don’t think it realistic to expect the guy to be lights-out for every outing. He’ll still generate a lot of attention every time he gets the ball, and that’s fine, but he’ll still need to develop into someone that can excel at the major league level. Lights-out, by the way, is the same way your mom likes to have sex. Probably because she’s so fat. Also.