Williams on Strasburg, Garcia and Storen after Nats' 11-1 win

VIERA, Fla. - The Nationals rolled to an 11-1 win over the Cardinals today on a beautiful day in Viera. Here are manager Matt Williams' thoughts after the win: On Stephen Strasburg, who allowed one run over three innings: "I thought he was really around the zone today, although a lot of them were called balls. But I thought he was really around it. So it was good. Sliders were good. Probably threw more today than he did his first time out, but they were good. Curveball was good. Looked good to me." On Strasburg's athletic play covering first base on a third-inning grounder in the hole: "It's part of the game. It's things we have to do to win, to be competitive, to win every day. We just don't want to give them extra outs. So that's part of the process. Good baserunning today, aggressive baserunning, which is really good to see. Those little things add up, so we'll try to continue to do that." On whether he expects Ian Desmond (4-for-4 in stolen base attempts) to swipe more bags in the regular season this year: "I'm expecting him to feel the game and to be aggressive. So there are times where you just can't go, but there are times when you can. So he's just working on that this spring. Doesn't mean he's going to steal more, just means he's looking for opportunity. And that's good." On Christian Garcia's off-speed stuff looking sharp: "Today I think the majority of his strikeouts, of the three, were heaters. I think one was a breaking ball and the other two were sinkers. The fact that he can throw the ball low-to-mid 90s with sink is most important, and he can throw his breaking ball off that. But he spiked a couple of them today, a little bit of overthrowing the breaking ball. But got back with his fastball, which is good. If he can command both sides of the plate, then he'll do really well." On if Garcia has ramped up the velocity in his last couple of outings: "Again, he wants to throw strikes and get ahead of hitters and all that stuff. So he's got to take a little bit off. The ball will actually move a little bit more for him (when he does that). And today he was good. He was really good." On Drew Storen, who worked a scoreless inning today: "He was a little more pumped up his first time out, but today he was better. Down in the zone. Better. Much better."



Talking shifts with new Nats defensive coordinator...
The cause of Strasburg's first-inning struggles - ...
 

By accepting you will be accessing a service provided by a third-party external to https://www.masnsports.com/