Strasburg's evolution on full display during Game 2 win

HOUSTON - So much has been asked, answered and written about the evolution of Stephen Strasburg. Here, though, is the perfect encapsulation of it all, viewed entirely through the prism of the final batter he faced in Game 2 of the World Series on Wednesday night.

Embroiled in a tense, 2-2 game in the bottom of the sixth, Strasburg was facing Astros pinch-hitter Kyle Tucker with two on and two out. He fell behind in the count 2-0, and as the sellout crowd of 43,357 at Minute Maid Park rose and roared with anticipation, Strasburg reached back and threw a curveball over the plate for strike one.

Then came a changeup that Tucker swung through, and now the count was even at 2-2. Tucker would foul off two more pitches, one fastball and one changeup, and he would take a high fastball for ball three to load up the count.

And now, for his 114th pitch of the night, with merely a World Series game on the line, what did Strasburg throw? He threw a curveball. It came in at 81 mph. It was up in the zone, but it was in the zone. And it completely fooled Tucker, who flat-out froze and watched the pitch sail by for strike three.

"I think you need to use all your pitches," Strasburg said later. "And if you can use it any time and in any count, it makes it a lot harder on them."

There's the evolution of Strasburg, on display for the whole world to see. As things were getting dicey all around him, as his pitch count soared, as the plate umpire was squeezing him out of several close calls on the edges, he dug down and executed a difficult pitch in a most difficult situation and got himself out of a jam.

"One, he has the confidence to do it," manager Davey Martinez said. "And two, he's become a premier pitcher, a big-game pitcher. We've seen that. He doesn't get rattled. He knows what he needs to do. He stays in the moment, which is huge for him. He doesn't get overly excited when things happen. And he loves the big game. He really does."

It's hard to dispute that. Strasburg, as you may have heard by now, excels in October. In eight career postseason appearances, he owns a 1.34 ERA, fifth-best among all pitchers who have thrown at least 40 postseason innings, topped only by four Hall of Famers (Mariano Rivera, Sandy Koufax, Christy Mathewson, Eddie Plank).

Wednesday night's start, though, wasn't a display of pure dominance from Strasburg. Quite the contrary. He gave up three straight hits in the bottom of the first, capped by Alex Bregman's two-run homer. He enjoyed only one 1-2-3 inning, that in a bottom of the second made possible in large part by Asdrúbal Cabrera's diving catch of Yordan Alvarez's line drive to shallow right field.

Just as Max Scherzer found out in Game 1 on Tuesday, Strasburg learned just how fearsome the Astros lineup is, with a group of professional hitters who refuse to swing at pitches out of the zone.

"That's a really good team," first baseman Ryan Zimmerman said. "They know how to work pitchers. They don't swing at balls. It's hard to pitch against those guys. They've been the best team in baseball pretty much all year. So for (Scherzer and Strasburg) to gut it out and do what they did the last couple nights was huge."

Also huge: the scene in the Nationals dugout later in the game, after Strasburg had departed, when Gerardo Parra and Aníbal Sánchez continued recent tradition and hugged the big right-hander for perhaps 10 exceptionally awkward seconds.

"You just have to embrace it," Strasburg said. "They start squeezing me a little bit harder every time, but that's OK."

It appears the evolution of Stephen Strasburg isn't simply confined to the mound. The man embraces it all now, and he and his teammates may only be a couple days away from embracing a certain piece of hardware handed out by the commissioner.