In his pregame press conference prior to Wednesday night's game against the Atlanta Braves, Nationals manager Davey Johnson dropped a hint regarding the potential date of Stephen Strasburg's final start before the club heeds doctor's orders and shuts the right-hander down for the rest of the year.

Davey pre-game said they'll need a starter for 2, maybe 3 starts for Stras. Told reporters "Even you can do the math." #Nats

— Dave Nichols (@DaveNicholsDSP) August 22, 2012

It might be a bit of misdirection, but since the Nationals have been so surprisingly forthcoming about this all year, let's take the bait.

Here's Strasburg's start schedule for the rest of the year if the Nats were letting him carry on to the end. This is assuming no six-man rotation and no skipped starts.

8/28 at Miami

9/2 vs. St. Louis

9/7 vs. Florida

9/12 at New York

9/19 vs. Los Angeles

9/24 vs. Milwaukee

9/29 at St. Louis

That's seven starts. Let's assume that the Nats will try to play it safe and sit Strasburg for the final three starts, which would make his last start of 2012 Sept. 12 against the Mets. If Strasburg goes six innings (essentially his average start length this year) in each game that would put him at 169.1 innings after the Mets game on the 12th.

Just something to keep in mind as the season winds down.