Next Stop, 6 Straight Cy Young Awards

What, is that too much hyperbole? Strasburg doesn’t have to win all of them, other Washington pitchers can get a few. Finally, the long Nationals nightmare is over. What’s left to say? I, and the rest of the known world, have already talked at length about Strasburg. He’s awesome. The Nats ended up paying $15.1 M, which I gotta say is less than I thought it would take. Perhaps there are shrewd negotiators in there somewhere.

A quick note before the celebration. Even though it’s a four year deal, the Nats will still control him the normal approximately 6 years.  I’m not positive about this whole thing, but I’m pretty sure that he doesn’t become a free agent after the 4th season. Anyway, full details will probably be available soon. I really thought this would happen, if you go back you can see that. But I’m not gonna lie, I was pretty darn nervous. So for now, rather do any analysis, let’s just be happy today that they got the best prospect in 20 years, if not ever.

You know what must be done:

Being Lazy, Getting Beaten by Hustle

In sports, when you don’t use your head, you open yourself up to getting beat. This warning has has played out to be truth time and time again for the Nats. Whether it’s a baserunning blunder, a throw to the wrong man, not running out a grounder that ends up getting bobbled, not pressuring the defense into making a throw, or any of a myriad of other brain farts, this season the Nats have always seemed to play poor mental baseball.

Once again this weekend, the difference between the winner and the loser was about hustle, about mental mistakes, about something that makes you stand up and go “Come on, did you guys really just let that happen?” It was one of those plays where you say, “I know I’ve seen that before, but never in real life.” The funny thing was, it wasn’t Washington who screwed up and lost. It was their opponent, Cincinnati, and the Nats were the ones that hustled, the ones that added pressure, the ones that won.