Chicago @ Washington preview
Nationals Park
Fear not Washington, the Stephen Strasburg tour is rolling back into your town.
Friday will mark nine days between Strasburg’s first appearance in the big leagues at Nationals Park and his return to the friendly confines. In between was an appearance on the road against Cleveland, but now the rookie phenom is back for his second home start.
He will take the mound as Washington welcomes the Chicago White Sox to town for a three-game interleague set.
And to say that the Strasburg’s arrival home will be heavily anticipated might be an understatement considering the 21-year has been as good, if not better, than advertised.
All Strasberg has done through two starts is go 2-0 with a 2.19 ERA and 22 strikeouts in 12.1 innings since being called up.
While his debut was fantastic, Strasburg showed some signs of being human against the Indians. The right-hander allowed a run on a pair of hits, but struggled with his command at times as he walked five batters. This after walking none in seven frames of his debut.
He also struck out eight batters and, more importantly, picked up the win as the Nationals remained unbeaten in his two starts, due in part to the 14 runs of support he has received in the process.
Unfortunately, while Strasburg has been dominant his presence has yet to turn the lowly Nationals into winners. Washington has just a pair of wins in their last nine games that Strasburg hasn’t started, including dropping five of six overall heading into the weekend.
Doing his part, however, has been free-swinging slugger Adam Dunn, who has homered in five of the previous eight contests and leads the club with 16 on the season.
Trying to slow him down will be Chicago right-hander Gavin Floyd, who hasn’t quite been able to find his groove this season.
Despite pitching well over his past two starts (two earned runs over 14 innings) he has no wins to show for it and is 2-7 with a 5.64 ERA to date.
In perhaps a sign of a turnaround, Floyd took a no-hitter into the seventh inning of his last outing, but still ended up with the loss as his counterpart Ted Lilly had a no-hitter through eight innings for the Chicago Cubs.
Even though their ace has been scuffling, the White Sox definitely have not. With Thursday’s 5-4 win over Pittsburgh, they have won seven of eight and sit in third place of the NL Central, 6 1/2 games out of first.