Strasburg strong run to the finish line, now prepares for Chicago

If there was a start Stephen Strasburg wanted to have to get him tuned up right before the postseason begins next week, this was the one.

Strasburg fired 7 2/3 shutout innings and Ryan Zimmerman had a pair of homers with four RBIs as the Nationals rolled the Pirates 6-1.

Strasburg did not allow a hit until there was two outs in the fifth. He struck out eight, walked two and scattered two hits to improve to 15-4. He did all of this on just 98 pitches, 63 for strikes.

"Just like you put in a lot of work in the offseason and stuff and you just try to listen to your arm the whole year, try not to tweak stuff too much," Strasburg said. "It's got its ups and downs, but you got to focus on what you can control."

"My fastball command was pretty good. I was able to throw my curveball pretty well, too. Slider was surprisingly pretty good, too."

Strasburg has been incredible since the All-Star break: 6-1 with a 0.86 ERA. His eight strikeouts Friday helped him to the 200 strikeout plateau for the second time in his career.

"Stras was outstanding," said manager Dusty Baker. "He was outstanding from the very beginning. He had a good breaking ball. A good changeup. And a very good fastball. And he had good tempo and good poise out there. So it's nice to see."

Pirates manager Clint Hurdle focused on why Strasburg made it so hard for his hitters to get any offense going, just two singles through seven innings.

"He has been doing it awhile," Hurdle said. "He's a craftsman. The changeup is an effective pitch. He has the ability to execute four very good major league pitches."

Strasburg continues quite the run. He has allowed no earned runs in seven of his last nine starts.

"When he's on, he's really on and this compares to some of the great runs that I've seen," Baker said. "And he's highly determined and you could tell. He wasn't talking much, which he doesn't do anyway. He was really focused tonight. And (Matt) Wieters caught a great game for him. I don't know if he shook Wieters off at all tonight, which increases his tempo and his rhythm. So we got to give both a lot of credit tonight."

Strasburg agreed, crediting Wieters for bringing important pitch variations to the table during their pregame strategy session because of what he had seen from the Pirates hitters in previous matchups.

"He managed the game really well," Strasburg said. "He does his homework. Even when we sat in the meeting today, he kind of brought up a lot of points that I really didn't look at. It was just because he was looking at past A-B's guys had off of me. You can always appreciate that."

With Strasburg pitching this well, it is a perfect final start before they take on the Cubs next week in the first round of the postseason. You could argue with his record of five wins in his last six decisions that this is the best end-of-season run before the playoffs he has had, and he is healthy.

With all this recent success, could Strasburg be the game one starter instead of Max Scherzer?

"We know what we want to do," Baker said. "We'll let you know next Thursday or whatever it is."

Whether he pitches Game 1 or Game 2 next weekend, Strasburg is ready.

"It's just one step at a time," Strasburg said. "There's work to do tomorrow and there's still a couple of games left. But you just keep trying to get better every single day and just take it one pitch at a time when you're out there."

Bryce Harper played seven innings, going 0-for-4 at the plate with two strikeouts and grounding into a double play. But not getting hits is not worrying Baker. He knows the four days next week before Game 1 will be beneficial to Harper in a different way.

"Each day that goes by gives him another chance to get his timing and his rhythm," Baker explained. "And he did see a lot of pitches tonight. They pitched him tough tonight and Harp's going to get it. And if he doesn't get it right away, we got to pick up the slack until he gets it."