I've dished out a lot of flack on this whole Strasburg hype thing. When you start calling his major league debut "Strasmas" and giving him the kind of attention he's received so early in his career ... well, it just begs to be mocked.
The kid obviously has great stuff and you can see why the Nationals fans (who haven't exactly had much to cheer about in their team's short history) are so excited.
Comparing him to Barry Enright just isn't fair. To Stephen, I mean.
I kid.
Of course, Strasburg has tremendous upside and I really hope he can stay healthy and have a long and productive career. Star pitchers are great for the game and as we saw today, and as we saw during the Randy Johnson era in Phoenix, teams love to get up for those kinds of contests.
Having a guy like Stephen on another team makes for a ton of extra fun during the marathon of a long season.
Still, he's barely pitched half of one season and, like Enright, has a lot to prove before we go anointing him the savior of baseball.
Barry showed tremendous poise today, as he's done since coming up from Double-A Mobile. He's got a lot of promise and certainly has the make-up to be a top of the rotation guy. But we should all remember the great Baby Backs era of Diamondbacks history.
Young stars in the making like Robby Hammock, Matt Kata, Alex Cintron, Jr Spivey and that Brandon Webb guy. With one Cy Young exception, how did that all work out?
I am enjoying Barry's sizzling start to his career as much as the next guy, but by no means should we be penciling him into the Hall of Fame, let alone next year's starting rotation.
I hope Nationals fans aren't getting ahead of themselves with Strasburg, either. He's good, but in baseball, to be great, you've got to stick around for a long, long time.