There was no grand announcement on the scoreboard, and no honorifics were shared with the 24,765 at Nationals Park on Sunday afternoon for a 3-2 win over the Philadelphia Phillies that ended Washington’s three-game skid. But the day after Stephen Strasburg retired was still the day after Stephen Strasburg retired.
That meant reliever-turned-pitching-strategist Sean Doolittle reminisced about the bookends of his time with Strasburg: the intimidation he felt next to the right-hander’s 6-foot-5 frame early on and his bewilderment that Strasburg would watch his bullpen sessions and pick his brain in the final years — as well as the kindness and intelligence his friend showed in the years in between.
That meant lefty Patrick Corbin, who shared a rotation with Strasburg and got the win in relief in Game 7 of the 2019 World Series after Strasburg’s valiant start in Game 6, called him “a huge part” of why he signed with the Nationals.
That meant San Diego area native Riley Adams, who saw Strasburg dominate at San Diego State and caught his last major league game in June 2022, remembered his meticulousness, even in his final year; closer Kyle Finnegan said he was happy the Nationals are able to celebrate his career; General Manager Mike Rizzo remembered Strasburg trying to get into a Corvette after winning World Series MVP honors; and Manager Dave Martinez remembered how he always took the ball, even when he was hurting.
They all smiled when asked for their memories, paused a bit longer than usual to consider their answers and told the same sorts of stories because Strasburg’s best moments so often coincided with the Nationals’ biggest moments. They spoke of his competitiveness; he was labeled a bulldog by Adams and a horse by Martinez. They brought up his postseason heroics, his 1.46 ERA in the playoffs and his willingness to take the ball out of the bullpen in the 2019 championship run. And they mentioned that he lived up to the hype of a No. 1 draft pick, that his fastball would rise and his change-up would baffle. They noted how his climb to relevance mirrored that of the organization.
And they chuckled when they remembered how he finally opened up a little after 2019, champagne flowing, hugs embraced by a player known for his stoic demeanor.
“Definitely somebody that we’ve missed the last couple seasons in here, just with everything that’s going on. Guys have missed him,” Corbin said. “So hopefully get to see him soon.”
“He’s part of the furniture here. He always will be and always has been, and we just want him to be happy and for this thing to work out the way it did,” Rizzo said. “To me, it wasn’t a matter of if; it was a matter of just when we can get this thing finished.”
Rizzo declined to offer insight on the financial implications of his retirement.
“I’m not going to get into that stuff,” he said. “This is a celebration of Stras’s career and the great memories that we have of him. That’s business. This is personal.”
While announcing his retirement Sunday morning, Strasburg thanked the Nationals and the fans.
“As a young kid, all I dreamt about was winning a World Series,” he said in a statement. “Thanks to the many coaches, teammates, and medical staff, my boyhood dream came true in 2019. Despite this being a personal goal of mine, I’ve come to realize how truly important and special that moment was for so many fans in the DMV. Your unwavering support through all the ups and downs will always mean the world to me.”
Here is a statement from Stephen Strasburg on retiring. pic.twitter.com/BltKfJ1OZR
— Barry Svrluga (@barrysvrluga) April 7, 2024
The players remaining from Strasburg’s days said they hope he is at peace. They want him to be remembered for what he accomplished, not how his career ended.
“It hurts, man. It hurts. I think the thing that hurts for me watching it is people want to have an opinion on it,” Doolittle said. “They want to say stuff about his contract. They want to say stuff about his body, and it’s like, we don’t get to pick our connective tissue. He worked so hard, and he got every last drop out of his body.”
On the field Sunday, over 5⅔ strong innings, lefty MacKenzie Gore showed many of the traits that have prompted Martinez to mention him in the same breath as Strasburg and Max Scherzer over the past few months. His four-seam fastball generated eight whiffs and seven called strikes. It averaged 97.2 mph, largely kept the Phillies at bay and helped the Nationals (3-6) grab an early lead.
“It was good. We used it in the right way today,” Gore said of his fastball. “I thought it was the best pitch today.”
Ildemaro Vargas doubled and came home on a Luis García Jr. single to tie the score at 1 in the second. An inning later, Lane Thomas tested first baseman Bryce Harper’s arm on a pickoff play and successfully stole second, which led to a 2-1 lead on Joey Meneses’s RBI single. Thomas’s legs came up big again in the fifth, when he stole another base and scored the go-ahead run on an Adams sacrifice fly to nullify Edmundo Sosa’s solo home run for the Phillies (4-5) in the top half. Thomas is 6 for 6 on stolen base attempts after notching a career-high 20 steals last year.
His base running was particularly important as shortstop CJ Abrams missed a second straight game with a bone bruise on his left pinkie finger. He remains day-to-day, Martinez said.
“We’re going to hit our home runs, but I don’t think that’s our identity as a team,” Thomas said. “So I think that’s really important, to take advantage and run the bases and be aggressive and try to get some early runs that way.”
The bullpen continued to tick upward by throwing 3⅓ scoreless innings behind Gore, a spotless mark preserved by the defensive dazzle of Jesse Winker, whose leaping catch against the left field wall in the ninth robbed Trea Turner of an extra-base hit, prompted a fist pump from the seat of his pants and helped Kyle Finnegan notch his third save.
