Tonight, one of the most awaited meetings of this season will take place in Washington, DC. Two rookie phenoms who have been surrounded by a mountain of media hype will face each other for the first time. The Nationals pitching rookie Stephen Strasburg and the Braves 5 tool rookie Jason Heyward. The hype machine will most likely suffer a massive internal meltdown before this one is over.
Strasburg has taken DC by storm. He has the fans coming out to the games. He has people buying Nationals merchandise. He is covered incessantly by the sports media. The hype has been crushing and yet he continues to amaze everyone. Strasburg struck out 14 in his MLB debut. Every time I see him pitch I am astounded by his breaking ball. He can throw almost 100 pitches in a game and still throw many of them at the 100 mph mark. But it’s that breaking ball that makes batters go weak.
How will Heyward handle Strasburg? Heyward has shown to be a very patient hitter for a 20 year old. He’s not up there just hacking away at everything. He wants to get on base – any way he can and a walk suits him just fine if that’s what it takes. Heyward has had a lot of hype as well, not nearly what Strasburg has had, but still a lot. He has handled it all with grace and ease. He is an integral part of the Braves run for the post season. The matchup with Strasburg is one for all baseball fans.
Will the Nationals pitch to him or will they give him a pass? Wouldn’t that just torque off the guys at ESPN? They would have an aneurysm. All the hype for nothing. It would kind of serve them right, but would it serve the game? I guess that would depend on the situation when Heyward gets to the plate for the first time. I hope they pitch to him. I hope it’s a great at bat and a great pitching performance. Baseball needs all the positivity it can get and having two of the faces of the game be that positive influence suits me just fine. Oh, and just so there’s no confusion, I hope Heyward wins the battle.
© photo credit: Cordileran
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And Strasburg is scratched from tonight’s lineup with soreness – so there goes the matchup yet again