Stephen Strasburg was placed on the 15-day IL Tuesday with what the Nationals officially termed a stress reaction in his ribs, and when asked about it before the game, manager Davey Martinez confirmed what many feared: it’s connected to his thoracic outlet syndrome surgery.
“There are so many unknowns about this surgery and what can happen,” Martinez said. “This is part of it. So it is related. We’re at a point now where, honestly, Stephen has put all the work in, he’s done everything that he needed to do, and it’s just…this surgery, you don’t know where it’s going to go.”
As Chris O’Leary noted in an appearance on WJFK earlier Tuesday, there’s a chance Strasburg will never be the same again – whether that’s in having to modify his pitching style altogether, or simply never being the pitcher he was staying at his current level.
Martinez wouldn’t discuss that, but his answer when asked about what Strasburg’s future holds seemed like he was as resigned to that notion as anything.
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"I hope and pray that he comes back,” Martinez said. “Who knows when, there is no timetable, but I hope that he can come back and pitch again for us, so I don’t really want to look at it that way. I want to look at it as if he worked really hard to come back and he was able to pitch again in the big leagues, right? Even though it was one start, and so let’s see what happens after this little stint here. See if we can get him back.”
Strasburg will visit Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles for a second opinion, and Martinez said the only treatment otherwise right now is rest to “let it calm down a little bit.”
And however long he is out, or even compromised, will just be another reminder of what could’ve been and what sometimes ends up being, especially with pitchers – as Strasburg is now 2 ½ years into the megadeal he signed after helping the Nats win the 2019 World Series, and he has pitched just 49 1/3 innings (MLB and minors combined) on that deal with zero coming in the near future.
All the Nats can do now, though, is wax poetic on Strasburg’s final MLB start, for now.
“We all hurt for him because he worked his butt off to get back and try to help us and he went out there and we were so excited that he was out there,” Martinez said. “It was something else to see him out there pitching again.”
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