On the March: Strasburg has golden arm

(Editor's note: Scott Marchand is the pitching coach at the Air Force Academy. His journal about life in baseball will appear at Fan Fanatic Sports on a weekly basis)

SLIDERS AND…

To steal a line from former NFL coach Dennis Green, “They were who we thought they were.” Or, in this case, “He is who you thought he was.” HE is Stephen Strasburg, junior right-handed pitcher from San Diego State University, and the prohibitive favorite for the No. 1 draft pick in tonight’s Major League Baseball’s 2009 First-Year Player Draft. Strasburg is who everyone thinks he is, or at least he was, on that night.

On a beautiful California evening this past May, my Air Force Falcons visited the friendly confines of Tony Gwynn Stadium to take on the San Diego State Aztecs before a sold out crowd of nearly 4,000 Southern Californians, sprinkled with a loyal contingent of Falcon faithful.
We were greeted with our traditional scheduled round of dusky batting practice, performed on a flawlessly manicured field amidst the sounds of baseball fans lazily walking to their general admission seats. Instead of spreading throughout the stadium, it seemed that most fans chose to fill the left field stands first; the seats closest to the Aztecs bullpen.

Strasburg emerged from the third base dugout, to the wonder of the fans, and jogged briskly to the angled corner in left field. There, he began his warm-up routine in the same fashion he had for every other start of his storied junior season. Pitchers are creatures of habit, and Stras was no exception.
A lengthy stretching routine and arm care regimen completed, he began his series of long toss throwing drills with an Aztec catcher. However, his game of catch had the unique quality of angularity. Strasburg didn’t play long toss in a straight line away from the foul line. He would run out of room. Stras played long toss BETWEEN the foul poles, to afford him enough space to fully air out his whippy right arm.

The lineups exchanged and the Anthem performed, the first pitch of the series whizzed through the night air and off the backstop; a 101 mph fastball, and a foul tip. I thought, while crouching in the first base coaches’ box, “We are gonna hit this guy.” And we nearly did, until he showed us the slider.

After we batted once through our lineup, Strasburg unleashed breaking ball torment on our Falcon hitters. Sliders in 0-0 counts, sliders in 1-0 counts -- slider, slider, slider for strikes one, two, and three, until his final number totaled 17 free trips back to the dugout for our hitters. Our guys had a great approach on his fastball, but the introduction of and the willingness to throw the slider in any count was baffling enough to make the San Diego State defense work for only 10 of the game’s 27 outs. We posted no hits.

The next day, our bus arrived at the stadium, and we emerged to get ready for a late morning BP session. We sat and watched the Aztecs finish their rounds, and there was Stephen Strasburg, one night off of his first no-hitter and a few weeks away from getting paid to play a child’s game, manning the outfield bucket filled with shagged flies and grounders ready to sprint into the mound to fill his BP pitcher’s ball cart. Stras took time to approach our players and ask them questions about their lives as Air Force Academy cadets, and to thank them for what they were doing for our country.

On Friday, Strasburg showed why some have called him the best college pitcher of all time. On Saturday, Strasburg was just another kid, playing the game of baseball.