Strasburg to have Tommy John Surgery

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The Washington Nationals say star rookie Stephen Strasburg has a "significant tear" in his elbow ligament and probably will have Tommy John surgery.

General manager Mike Rizzo said Friday that an enhanced MRI taken a day earlier revealed the extent of the injury to the right elbow.

The 22-year-old right-hander will travel to the West Coast for a second opinion. But Rizzo says he anticipates Strasburg will require surgery, ruling him out for 12 to 18 months.

The news brings an abrupt halt to Strasburg's promising first season. He struck out 14 batters in his major league debut in June. Strasburg is 5-3 with a 2.91 ERA and 92 strikeouts in 68 innings.

Well that didn't take very long. You never know with these fireballers how long they can last.

This is why they were monitoring his pitch counts and innings. Hopefully he will be able to come back and be just as good. Lots of pitchers have had arm surgeries and come back to be as good as ever.

How many of them had it at his age though?

He's probably the youngest who'll have the Tommy John procedure. However, I don't think that Mark Prior and Kerry Wood were very old when they got the Tommy John surgery. And we all know how that turned out for them: Prior's still trying to make his way back to the major leagues while Kerry Wood has now turned into a closer and BJ Ryan, who once was a very reliable closer, is no longer on the radar. At least, there's a shimmer of hope for Strasburg though: Chris Carpenter got the same procedure and look at his record this year. He's doing phenomenal.

Now, I definitely feel that the Nationals will do everything to get Bryce Harper to play next year and they'll hope he's dominant from the get-go. But that's for sure a major setback for the Nationals building process.

I would put closer in quotations for Kerry Wood. When he's closing, he's decent at best. Now, he's not even closing at all (and rightfully so).

I really hope that if Strasburg can come back from this, that the Nationals will actually try and fix his mechanics. His elbow is flying pretty violently when he pitches and I hope he'll be willing to sacrifice a couple MPH to get a safer delivery that will hopefully extend his career.

In terms of Bryce Harper, I actually think he's 3 years away. He's got power, he's got all these numbers, all this potential, yeah. But people sometimes forget that some of the other hitters drafted put those numbers up against quality national college teams. Harper was facing high school competition. That and I think the Nats would want him to make a position change, so that should take some time to get adjusted to defensively.

I agree with Baba on this and the ironic thing about this is, the Nat's manger was also managing the Cub's, when Kerry Wood blew up and they blew his arm out. This is exactly why they were worried about his innings and they will have to fix him throwing motion.

Are you sure it wasn't Dusty Baker who was managing the Cubs when Wood blew his arm out?

You could be right there, but I am pretty sure the current Nats mngr was there when they brought in Kerry Wood. SC did a piece on Strasburg during the All Star break and I am almost positive they said that the Nats manger was with the Cubs back then. They were talking about watching his pitches, so he would not end up like Kerry Wood.

Just wiki'd it and Riggleman was with the Cubs until 1999. Kerry Wood first broke into the majors in 1998, so 1 year under him.