Mike Rizzo defends decision of shutting down Stephen Strasburg as criticism emerges-MLB Update
Loss against St. Louis Cardinals on Friday has raised number of questions for the management of Washington Nationals.
Among them, the fans are most seriously seeking explanation about the removal of Stephen Strasburg during the season.
Most of the experts believe that with the presence of Strasburg in the rotation during the post-season, the Nationals would not have been eliminated so early.
Irrespective of the intensity of the criticism, General Manager for the Nationals, Mike Rizzo has asserted that he took the right decision and that he does not regret it.
Withdrawing Strasburg from the season was in the best interest of the team, he stated.
Rizzo basically has defended his move on the grounds of long-term sustainability of the Nationals. He does not want to see the Nationals becoming a mediocre unit after performing well in one particular season.
Just like any top-class team in the Major League, he aims to witness the Nationals in the playoffs every year and earning glory.
In light of this, Rizzo is as much concerned about the tasks pertinent to current needs of the team as the ones related to the future. By resting Strasburg, he has revealed his desire to ascertain that he performs equally well in the upcoming years as opposed
to declining after one good season.
Fans, regardless of the elaborations coming off from Rizzo, are depressed. They have been let down by the team’s hopelessly poor performances in the playoffs. They cannot get rid of the wounds of watching the Nationals losing the match after almost winning
it.
The Nationals were just one strike away from victory in the ninth inning. Unfortunately their reliever Drew Storen could not complete the inning. Even as the situation saw two outs and the batter down by two strikes, Storen failed to wrap up the game in
the Nationals’ favour.
Nationals’ first baseman Adam LaRoche has also admitted that if Strasburg was present, they would not have struggled in the initial few games against the Cardinals of the National League Division Series.
“Hindsight, because we had some starters struggle, you can say it would have been different,” Adam LaRoche acknowledged. “I think you guys got a good feel when it happened what the guys were thinking. We were fine with it. In a sense, we appreciated that
Rizzo stuck to his guns—he said he was going to shut him down and did it. Of course we’d love to have him.”
While LaRoche praised Rizzo for continuously showing faith in his decision, he appears to be considering the absence of Strasburg as the reason why they lost.
Only time will tell whether implementation of shutting down Strasburg while the Nationals were in the race of winning the World Series was the right move or not.
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