Questions about Strasburg abound in blowout loss (updated)

The red flags appeared to be there right from the get-go. Stephen Strasburg's first pitch of the night was a 91 mph fastball. There were more of them throughout a first inning that saw one ball leave the yard, then plenty more in the tortured innings that followed.

Strasburg clearly didn't seem to feel right. That seemed obvious based on the numbers - eight runs allowed, five batters walked, three homers surrendered, two or three miles per hour reduced on all of his pitches - but also on what your eyes told you watching the Nationals right-hander labor his way through four-plus innings during what became a ghastly 14-3 loss to the Cardinals.

He wasn't finishing his pitches. Instead of driving toward the plate, he was peeling off toward the first base dugout. He was occasionally testing out his left side, then his neck. A camera later spotted him in the tunnel behind the dugout feeling around his right shoulder and neck.

Anyone who has watched Strasburg throughout his 11 years in the majors has been trained to spot the warning signs. Sometimes they don't mean anything. Often they do.

In this case, however, the people who decide whether a pitcher should be allowed to continue pitching clearly decided there was nothing to be alarmed about. Despite the diminished velocity, despite the bad body language, despite the ugly results, pitching coach Jim Hickey didn't stroll to the mound until well into the bottom of the fifth. Manager Davey Martinez didn't make the walk until he was asking for the ball from Strasburg following his 88th pitch of the game. Director of athletic training Paul Lessard never left the dugout.

"We talked to him. He didn't complain about anything," Martinez said during a rare postgame Zoom session in which the jovial skipper turned testy.

How, then, to explain Strasburg's miserable performance? Only twice in his career had he surrendered more than eight runs in a start: once in 2016 in Colorado (when it turned out he was injured) and once in 2019 in Arizona (when it turned out he was tipping his pitches).

There was little reason to believe the Cardinals knew what was coming tonight. And though injury seemed a more logical explanation, the aforementioned lack of a visit from the trainer suggested something else was going on.

"For us, it's part of the process. He hasn't pitched in a year," Martinez said, referencing Strasburg's lost 2020 season due to carpal tunnel neuritis in his right wrist. "We've got to get him out there. We've got to stretch him out. We've got to build him up. He was just a tad off today. His last outing was good. Today, he wasn't as sharp."

Strasburg felt like the loss in fastball velocity was a byproduct of his poor command, which was a byproduct of his poor mechanics. Unable to throw the ball where he wanted to, he had to dial things back just to try to find the strike zone.

"I would say I feel like I have more in the tank if I can sync it up a little better," he said. "I think it was more of a product of trying to slow things down, unfortunately to the point where I could just locate a fastball. I understand that extra velocity helps your margin for error. But I think for me it's just like trying to execute the pitch. And for whatever reason, I had to try to get it done at that speed, and it just didn't work out tonight."

It, of course, should be noted that most of the Nationals' traveling party received COVID-19 vaccines (the one-dose Johnson & Johnson shot) on Monday morning in St. Louis. The club did not reveal which players elected to get the vaccine, and every regular who was expected to play tonight did play.

"I haven't talked to the guys about how they felt after the game," Martinez said when asked if he had reason to believe anyone was dealing with side effects. "They looked fine. And they felt fine. Today was just not a good day all around."

Whatever the reason, all we know is that Strasburg labored through one of the worst nights of his career. And it was obvious right away.

Paul Goldschmidt blasted Strasburg's sixth pitch of the night (a 91 mph fastball) deep to left to get the Cardinals on the board. They never let up.

Losing confidence in that diminished fastball, Strasburg started throwing his off-speed pitches in unconventional counts. One of those, a 3-1 changeup to Nolan Arenado in the third, also wound up in the left field bleachers. And two batters later, Matt Carpenter (whose lone base hit of 2021 came on a bunt Monday night) launched a 90 mph fastball high off the right field foul pole to extend St. Louis' lead to 5-1.

"Over the course of the game, just tried to make some adjustments as far as incorporating some of the off-speed stuff, to kind of combat the lack of command," said Alex Avila, who made his 2021 debut behind the plate after spending time on the COVID-19-related injury list. "Just really made some poor pitches there toward the middle of the game, and just had a hard time getting strike one."

The bottom of the fourth was no kinder to Strasburg, who continued to try to battle his way through this nightmare with far more changeups and curveballs than he'd normally throw (45 of his 88 pitches in the end were off-speed offerings). He avoided surrendering another run, and with his pitch count at 78 and his spot in the lineup coming up in the top of the fifth, it seemed an obvious moment to make a change.

Except there was Strasburg batting for himself. And then retaking the mound for the bottom of the fifth. He lasted only three more batters, all of them reaching safely.

As for the video showing Strasburg feeling around his right shoulder and neck between innings, both Martinez and Strasburg were adamant it's not unusual for pitchers and more adamant that shot (which was provided by the Cardinals broadcast, since visiting teams are not allowed to have their own TV crews on site again this season due to COVID-19 protocols) should never have been shown on the air.

"Quite honestly, that shot shouldn't have been shown," Martinez said. "I'm a little perturbed about that. That camera's not supposed to be down in that tunnel."

"I think it's a joke, to be honest, that they shoot in the tunnel," Strasburg said. "There's got to be some sort of safe place in the stadium. I'm 32 years old, I've been doing this a long time. And there's been plenty of other starts where something's not feeling right. Whether you treat yourself, or you have a trainer come treat you, it's just a part of the business. ... There should be some sort of privacy, because people don't watch the games on TV to watch some sort of spy camera of what the players are doing in the tunnel."

Luis Avilán entered from the bullpen to try to clean up the mess, and that's when things got really ugly. Eight of the 11 Cardinals batters Avilán faced reached base. Martinez couldn't afford to pull him, needing the veteran lefty to wear one for the team and at least complete the inning, which ended with St. Louis holding a 13-run lead.

When it was finally over, Hernán Pérez was pitching for the Nationals, striking out a pair and retiring the side in the bottom of the eighth with an assortment of pitches that ranged between 54 and 78 mph.

It provided a small moment of levity for the Nats at the end of a brutal night, one that really left everyone asking one question, and only one question: What was going on with Strasburg?

"Again, it's a long season," he said. "It's April. We had kind of a very strange start to the season. So I'm just going to continue to do what I do and take it one day at a time. Whatever you guys want the narrative to be, that's your call. I'm going to go out there and give it everything I have every single start."