Strasburg Professional Debut

ESPN covering it with some non-Hannah Storm woman (for some reason) asking Steve Philips questions. Struck out the first batter which ESPN missed. Second batter was a lefty who cracked one to the left-field warning track. Struck out the third batter on a hard breaking ball after a couple foul balls and a ball in the dirt.

This is in the Florida Instructional League. Basically very low-level of ball and he'll probably just over-power these kids. He's only going two innings or 40 pitches, whatever comes first. This really isn't worth being covered by ESPN, but since I'm covering ESPN's coverage I guess I can't complain.

Gave up some hits and at least a run in the second. I missed it - I think ESPN may have also. Philips claiming his stuff reminds him of Justin Verlander...says his mechanics needs work. High 90's fastball, 12 to 6 curve and apparently a decent change as well.

Alright, that is enough of an indulgence. May try to preview the Minny/GB game if time permits (and it usually does).


*****EDIT***** Not sure where to put this and I believe this blog is actually more or less devoid of Mets fans...but Mike Francesa of 660 AM WFAN NY is going to have a long in hourse interview with the Mets owner Wilpon and GM Minaya. Should be an excellent excellent listen for all true Mets fans as Francesa is a very good interviewer who will not hold anything back (can't wait for him to absolutely force them to admit that they were wrong on Murphy). Even I, a Yankees fan, look forward to this. ....seems a good spot to also say that Francesa was attacking ESPN columnist and author Bill Simmons on Friday. Not sure if anything ever happened but Simmons tweeted he remains a huge Francesa fan but could not go on the show since ESPN forbid such (which is complete garbage by ESPN). Apparently Simmons is making some documentaries for ESPN and was ripping one that HBO did about Ted Williams which Francesa thought was well-done and called Simmons a front-man for ESPN and eventually said something along the lines of "Just stop talking Bill. No one wants to hear what Bill Simmons thinks." He then was going off about how Simmons apparently invited him to join him on his podcast saying something like "Call me back when you actually get your own show. We want there to be an actual record of this. We want someone to actual here it." And then something about technology. Slightly ignorant comment as podcasts have come into popularity, but funny nonetheless. I side with Francesa as usual.