San Diego St. vs Santa Clara 5/1/09

San Diego St. vs. Santa Clara 5/1/09 - Game Recap

Today was my first chance to see Stephen Strasburg pitch. For anyone who doesn't know, Stephen Strasburg is a starting pitcher for San Diego St. and is the #1 ranked amateur pitcher in the country, and is unquestionably going to be the first pick in the 2009 MLB Draft. Strasburg did not have his best stuff today and his control was shaky at times, but he was still dominant and had 12 strikeouts in eight innings of shutout baseball. Watching him live his stuff is absolutely filthy and he is probably the best pitcher I have ever seen live (that includes the major leagues). Even with his shaky control he was missing the strike zone by mere inches every pitch. San Diego State's lineup played decently, they were able to take advantage of Santa Clara's ace Nate Garcia's struggles. I didn't notice anything special about anyone in the lineup but they played an overall strong game.

Santa Clara on the other hand struggled mightily. Starter Nate Garcia had some impressive stuff at times and looked unhittable with some of his pitches; however, he struggled with his command. Many of the hits he gave up were caused when he would take a little off his pitches and throw them down the middle so he could get strikes. Santa Clara's lineup were able to draw some walks against Strasburg but whenever Strasburg was in trouble he would step up, rear back and get the strikeout or the groundout that he needed.

The one thing that this game did for me was reinforce my point about Stephen Strasburg needing the minor leagues. The reason is that whenever he would get into trouble he would just throw his nasty curve or his incredible fastball. Although this worked in this game I think he will have a lot more trouble getting professional hitters out using this method. If Santa Clara was better this could have easily been a 5-3 or 5-4 game instead of 5-0.