Photo by LEGNats for TalkNats
It was 8-years ago today that Stephen Strasburg electrified the baseball world with an incredible debut at Nationals Park. Stras struck out 14 batters in one for the ages. Tonight he takes the mound in hopes of bettering what he produced on that night.
The Giants are the team the Nationals face tonight in Nationals Park. They have Madison Bumgarner back from the DL, but they lost their best offensive weapon, Brandon Belt, to the DL due to an appendectomy. They only have 3 regulars on the DL which include Cueto and Samadrdzija. Lucky for the Giants that Brandon Crawford is the hottest hitter in baseball, he is batting .434 for the last month.
Rookie Andrew Suarez pitches tonight for the Giants, and if his name sounds familiar, it should be since the Washington Nationals drafted him in the 2nd round of the 2014 Draft from the University of Miami. Suarez did not sign with the Nats reportedly because he wanted above slot money and did not sign. Funny as it worked out he did not move up in the 2015 Draft to the 1st round and had to settle for full-slot money with the Giant at $1,010,100 per this tweet from MLB.com’s Jonathan Mayo. Suarez went from the 57th overall pick in 2014 by the Nationals to the 61st pick overall in 2015 with the Giants.
Suarez’s rookie campaign has been a mixed bag and the lefty has pitched to a 4.74 ERA in 8-starts and an awful 6.38 ERA on the road. Righties crush him at a slash of .305/.349/.551/.900 but he has made his money shutting down lefties at a .188 BAA.
Strasburg has made his money by making batters look bad on a consistent basis, and he plans on doing that again tonight.
We will wait closer to game time for any work on Adam Eaton‘s status for the weekend as he has been playing rehab games for the Potomac Nationals.
San Francisco Giants vs. Washington Nationals
Stadium: Nationals Park, Washington, D.C.
1st Pitch: 7:05 pm EDT
TV: MASN; MLB App out-of-market
Nats Radio: 106.7 The Fan and via the MLB app
Line-ups subject to change without notice:
