[blog] Lidge Says He’s Ready, and Praises Strasburg

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Lidge Says He’s Ready, and Praises Strasburg By TYLER KEPNER READING, Pa. – Brad Lidge had been on the mound for the final out of the World Series, and Stephen Strasburg has never thrown a pitch in the major leagues. Yet when Lidge walked into a packed conference room down the right field line at FirstEnergy Stadium on Tuesday, he smiled and said, “Strasburg must’ve thrown tonight.” Lidge pitched, too, working two innings and striking out four, allowing no hits or walks, in a rehabilitation assignment for Class AA Reading against Harrisburg. Lidge, who had elbow and knee surgery in the off-season, has made eight rehab appearances since April 10. “After tonight, I feel ready, to be honest,” Lidge said. “Being able to locate and use all my pitches effectively, knowing where I’m at velocity-wise and command-wise, I feel like I’m pretty much ready to go. We’ll see what they want me to do, how they want to activate me. I know we get back home on Friday, and I’m hoping that I’ll be activated for that game.” Lidge, who pitched the sixth and seventh innings, said he watched most of Strasburg’s outing on the clubhouse television. Strasburg allowed no hits or walks in five innings, striking out six. Only one hitter reached base – on a strikeout/passed ball. “He was pretty aggressive,” Lidge said. “If he’s able to pitch in effectively to major league hitters, he’s going to be really tough, because he has command of a changeup and a curveball. That kind of arm doesn’t come around. It’s not very often you see a guy being able to throw that hard with that kind of command. Hopefully our hitters will figure him out when he gets called up this year.” Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo did not respond to two phone messages this week, but he has been vague on his plans for Strasburg. It seems obvious that Strasburg – who is 3-0 with a 0.52 earned run average in four starts – is far better than this level of competition. By delaying his promotion to the majors, the Nationals can postpone his free agency and push back his salary arbitration clock. Lidge said there was an intangible benefit to spending time in the minors, but it was clear to him that Strasburg is more than ready to graduate from Class AA. “Clearly, he’s showing he’s ready to move on from double-A, and my guess is he’s going to have the same results in triple-A,” Lidge said. “It’ll be up to the big-league hitters to watch him very closely, and I think that’s obviously one big difference: they’ll be watching him over and over on video and picking up anything that he might do consistently and trying to exploit that. But from what I saw tonight, he was doing pretty much everything right.” Strasburg said he has learned a lot from his experience in Class AA. He pitched in the Arizona Fall League and in major league spring training, but did not play in the minors last season. The Nationals drafted him first overall in June and signed him for $15.1 million in August. “The big thing with these hitters is you’ve really got to establish the strike zone and let the hitter know you’re going to go in, and you’re going to go in hard,” he said. “A lot of these guys are extremely talented. In college I was kind of able to get away with a lot of pitches, just having plus velo. I’m not able to get away with those pitches as much. So I’ve really got to focus on not really worrying about how hard I’m throwing the ball, but where it’s going.” Strasburg answers questions politely, and he handled himself well last week in a studio appearance on ESPN after a game in New Britain, Conn. But he seems most at ease when talking about his craft, and that is what impresses his teammate, the top relief prospect Drew Storen. “The main thing that I’ve learned about him is he’s not about having these big deals and being on TV all the time,” Storen said. “He just likes pitching. I think he’s able to handle this type of pressure because of that. His main thing is going out and pitching. That’s when he has the most fun, and that’s what he’s told me: ‘I enjoy pitching more than anything.’ It’s not doing all these interviews or anything like that. It’s about playing baseball.” http://tinyurl.com/2dg6ac5 -- ※ 發信站: 批踢踢實業坊(ptt.cc) ◆ From: 140.109.23.219