Monday, June 14, 2010

Electirc

Originally posted on illinoisemaker.mlblogs.com. Posted on June 8, 2010 at 10:34 PM:

So -- quiet night in baseball, huh? Not much to talk about...

Hard to recall a single season in recent memory where rookie players have played such prominent roles for their teams. But as prominent a role as rookies have played this season, they expectations pale in comparison to what is expected of Stephen Strasburg. He's been the talk of baseball since touching 103 on the radar gun as a college senior. His minor league starts have been available on MiLB.TV and his final start in the minors was also picked up by the VS network -- a decent little coup for a channel dominated by hunting and fishing shows.

All eyes were on Strasburg tonight -- and all seats were full for the first time since Nationals Park opened a few years ago. The atmosphere was electric, and the event was hyped like a Yankees/Red Sox match-up. Time will tell if this kid is truly the "best pitching prospect ever", but you'd have to say he lived up to the hype in his debut. He went 7 innings, only gave up 4 hits, didn't walk a batter and struck out 14. He did surrender a 2 run shot to Delwyn Young, but was lights out aside from that one mistake. Tyler Clippard took care of the 8th and Capps closed things out in the 9th.

Somewhat overshadowed was Mike Stanton's debut for the Marlins. He went 3 for 5, scored 2 runs and struck out once. Not a bad night by any stretch, and while he fell a bit short of Jason Heyward's monster debut with the Braves, still mighty impressive for a kid that's only 20 and hasn't played above AA.

The rookies carried the night - without a doubt (the Mets Ike Davis also downed the Padres with a walk-off blast). 2010 has been the year of the rookie, and with any luck, we're seeing the dawn of the next age of baseball superstars that will take the torch from the likes of Jeter and Pujols and carry us into the next generation.

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