In the middle of his rehab, which is reportedly going will, Stephen Strasburg sat down with MASN's Ben Goessling to talk about many pitching topics. One of the most interesting responses was to a question about Strasburg's delivery, and if he plans to change it after he returns from Tommy John surgery, apparently, the answer is no.
Mechanically, if someone sees me for one game the first time in their life and they think this, this and this is wrong, then fine they can think what they want, but I've thrown this way my whole life. INjuries are a part of baseball. It's unfortunate that, you know, I'm the guy who's got the media attention. So immediately they're going to say 'what does he need to do to change? it's a mechanical problem.' But you don't see these guys down here in the minor leagues that have Tommy John and shoot up to the big leagues right after that because, you know, their arm gets stronger, they improve their control because of all the throwing. Nobody is saying anything about those guys that they have some mechanical flaws. It's just the nature of the beast, and it's almost funny now. You hear it come up and all you can really do is laugh.
Hm, interesting. I understand where Strasburg is coming from, but I also don't think he should be so quick to dismiss these claims. Everyone seemed to know that he was heading for Tommy John, and I don't know that the surgery will make him immune to any other problems his delivery might bring. But if he has those in the organization on his side, who am I to disagree.
I found one other interesting little nugget. It turns out, Strasburg was never really trying to strike all those people out. Apparently he was trying to pitch to contact, and they still couldn't hit him. In response to a question about people saying he needs to pitch better to contact:
the funny thing is a lot of these people don't really know what they're talking about they think that I'm trying to strike guys out. But if you're trying to strike a guy out, you're going to be walking him quite a bit more. Bottom line is I'm trying to pitch to contact, you know, it just so happens that they didn't make contact. You can say that I'm trying to strike everybody out, but who knows, I'm out there trying to throw strike one, I'm out there trying to get the guy out as fast as I possibly can.
Wow, I'd hate to see the kinds of swings and misses the opponents would have if he wasn't pitching to contact. Might look like wiffle ball at Nationals Park.