Washington Nationals

Stephen Strasburg just made a marvelous debut into the MLB with the Washington Nationals on Tuesday.

Bryce Harper was just selected by the Washington Nationals this week. He is advertised to be one of the best players in the MLB down the road.

He was a catcher in high school, but the Nationals will switch him to right field.

Harper has the power of a top farm prospect for an MLB team, he is just that good.

What does that mean for the Washington Nationals down the road? They will have the two best prospects to come out of high school or college in decades.

One of them is still a cellar dwelling team. The other no longer is. And that's not just by the standings.

The Pirates' win percentage of .390 is genuinely cellar-dwelling. They've been lucky for most of the season, in that one or more teams have had (until recently) even worse showings. But this luck seems to have run out, at least for now.

The Nationals have a win percentage .483. That puts them only half a game above the cellar, but only in the very competitive National League East. They're also only five games out of first place.

Washington D.C. is home to some of the world's most visited landmarks. The Lincoln Memorial, Smithsonian and Vietnam Wall are heralded across the globe and attract millions annually.

We can now add another monument: National’s Park, the new home of Stephen Strasburg. 

Counting his five Arizona Fall League starts, Stephen Strasburg had made sixteen starts as a professional before making his major league debut on June 8th. During these appearances, Strasburg pitched a total of 74.1 innings, walking 20, striking out 88, posted an ERA of 2.18, and racked up an 11-3 record.

Stephen Strasburg threw a gem in his MLB debut for the Washington Nationals. He struck out 14 batters in seven innings.

Strasburg will be the best pitcher in the MLB for a long time.

Ever since his college days at San Diego State, Stephen Strasburg has been advertised to be the No. 1 pick in the MLB Draft whenever he took the mound.

He has a nasty fastball that topped over 100 miles per hour and made half of Pirates' batters miss. This is his favorite pitch to get players out. This will be one of the best fastballs in the MLB.

Over 21 years ago a young slugger with incredible defensive skills made his debut for the Seattle Mariners.

In Ken Griffey Jr.'s first at-bat in Seattle he hit a home run.

With it, the Seattle fans saw a glimpse of the 20-year-old kid's beautiful swing that would dominate the sport's future. It was 1989 and for the next decade baseball would live and die by the popularity of the home run.

Okay, we get it already.

Stephen Strasburg’s name won’t be added to the long list of can’t-miss prospects who have missed.  Following his historic performance in his Major League debut Tuesday, the sports world is abuzz over his 99-mph heat and devastating slurve.

Strasburg’s dazzling debut was arguably the best moment in the history of the Washington Nationals.  It was a polarizing moment in the 2010 MLB season, which lacks compelling story lines even in mid-June.  It justified the national media’s hype and made the Nats’ a franchise worth covering.

Today's blog post has been —ahem —"ghost" —written by one Walter Perry Johnson. Don't mind him. He's been dead for over 60 years and has only the vaguest ideas of what's going on in the world.

It cannot be overstated how amazing the debut of phenom Stephen Strasburg was.

Personally, I've never seen anything like it, and I seriously doubt that you have either.

With so much hype surrounding the young man, it seemed impossible for him to possibly live up to it, especially in his first big league outing. But live up to it he did, perhaps even making it seem like he wasn't getting enough hype.