Earlier in the day Nats team president Stan Kasten apologized to the media and said we may not get a chance to talk with Stephen Strasburg until after he underwent Tommy John surgery on his right elbow.
Plans changed by the time we got to Nationals Park on Friday, though. Strasburg met with reporters in the media room at the ballpark around 4 p.m. to shed some light on his thoughts and emotions as he deals with the news that he will miss most of next season.
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“It was kind of a shock to me because I didn’t really feel anything,” Strasburg said about the injury he suffered last Saturday in Philadelphia. “It’s good in a way that it happened now instead of when we’re going to the postseason or getting ready for a World Series. So it’s a new challenge. I want to be the best at everything and right now I want to be the best at rehabbing and getting back out here.”
So what exactly happened? Nats general manager Mike Rizzo asked team doctors directly for their best guess. They really didn’t have one. A catastrophic failure of the ulnar collateral ligament may have happened with that 1-1 change-up to the Phillies’ Domonic Brown last Saturday. Or maybe years of hard curveballs and upper 90s fastballs finally caught up to him. His change-up, a darting pitch that generally registers about 90 miles-per-hour, is the one that caused the forearm pain he first felt – and shook off – at San Diego State. Sadly, medical science isn’t that advance yet. No one will ever know.
“You can dig into that all you want,” Strasburg said. “You’re looking at two change-ups out of the hundreds or thousands of change-ups that I’ve thrown, whether it’s out in the outfield, in a bullpen, during a game. It could have been any pitch.”
So Strasburg heads off to Los Angeles tomorrow to meet with Dr. Lewis Yocum, a renowned orthopaedic surgeon. He’ll give his final opinion and surgery could happen by early next week. It seemed almost amazing to Strasburg that he actually showed up to Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia last Sunday thinking team officials would let him have a light catch. He was pretty much pain free, after all. But Nats right-handed pitcher Jordan Zimmermann felt the same way a year ago. He had some pain. But his velocity was still good. It wasn’t until an enhanced MRI that a ligament tear was diagnosed. Strasburg endured that same roller-coaster ride.
“If I keep looking for an exclamation it’s just going to eat at me,” Strasburg said. “I’ve just got to let it go. I’ve got to move on. That’s what I’m doing. Everything happens for a reason. It’s obviously a test for me. Never had any shoulder or elbow surgery in my entire life. So it’s going to be a new experience. I’m just going to embrace it. I’m going to find the good in everything.”
Strasburg’s reaction was as expected when it became clear earlier in the week there was a problem on the initial MRI. Rizzo described him as “upset.” The 22-year-old said that for a couple of hours he bounced between anger and confusion.
“But I’ve got great support all around me and they reminded me of everything that I should be thankful for,” Strasburg said. “They put everything in perspective for me. The bottom line is this is a game. I’m very blessed to play this game for a living. This is a minor setback. But in the grand scheme of things it’s just a blip on the radar screen.”
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