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.

Sound the sirens of panic ladies and gentlemen, because the god amongst men sent down by the heavens to throw 100 MPH fastballs coupled with an assortment of earth-bending off-speed pitches for the Washington Nationals (and my fantasy team) was scratched from his start last night after he struggled to get loose during his warmups in the bullpen. According to reports, he was shut down by Nationals management after they noticed him ‘grimace’ after one of his tosses, which is ridiculous because a grimace could just be his reaction to how nasty his pitches are, such as, “Ooh man, that thing is SIZZLING. I could use my fastball to perform an emergency lobotomy on somebody today. Maybe I’ll try it on Adam Dunn, I don’t think anybody’d notice.”

Stephen Strasburg’s warmup session in the bullpen had lasted about a half-dozen tosses when Nationals pitching coach Steve McCatty approached the star rookie with a simple question.

“I just said, ‘Well, how’re you feeling?’ He said, ‘I feel stiff. My shoulder’s stiff,”’ McCatty recounted. “I said, ‘How bad?’ He said, ‘It’s just stiff, but I can get loose.’ I said, ‘Uh, no.’ And that was it,”

“Stephen was having trouble getting loose in the bullpen, and so I pulled the plug on it,” Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo said, adding that he considered it a “precautionary move.”

“There’s no shooting pains or anything like that in his shoulder or elbow,” Rizzo said. -YAHOO! Sports

An MRI was performed by Nationals doctors and as luck would have it no structural damage was found, but this news isn’t going to appease the angry sold out crowd of 40,000+ at Nationals Park who came to see Strasburg and ended up having to stare at 88 MPH Miguel Batista pitches all night. Sure, Batista threw a shutout but who cares about that when the alternative was to be mind-dazzled by an array of pitches that could make Chipper Jones give expressions like that of a puppy dog thrown into an ice bath. Refunds for all, I say! Read the rest of this entry »