Strasburg and Castro Impress in Debuts

Early Friday afternoon I talked about Stephen Strasburg and debut in Triple A later that night. Well, Strasburg flat out dominated. Strasburg threw only 65 pitches, including an incredible 45 for strikes, over 6 innings while only allowing one hit, striking out 6, and walked one. This kid is for real. I know, I know. It's Triple A. But my goodness, what an outing! And he's consistently done it throughout his brief stay in the Minors. Strasburg also left with a 3-0 lead. What's so significant about that? He drove in 2 of those runs.

Before the MLB season got underway a month ago, www.MLB.com put together their list of the Top 50 prospects throughout the league. Stephen Strasburg was #2 on that list. Starlin Castro, of the Chicago Cubs organization, was #22. Castro may have been 20 spots lower than Strasburg on that list, but he was going to make damn sure that his debut was going to coming sooner and be harder to top.

Starlin Castro began this season as the starting shortstop for the Cubs' Double A affiliate in Tennessee where he was batting .376 with 14 extra base hits and 20 RBIs. Friday morning he woke up to a phone call at 7 a.m. saying that his contract had been bought and he was to meet the big club in Cincinnati in a matter of hours. So how did the 20 year old respond? He simply went 2-5 with a 3 run HR in his first at-bat and a bases loaded triple in his second at-bat while accounting for a whopping 6 RBIs. As a matter of fact, those 6 RBIs are the most EVER for someone making their MLB debut, and the most since Ben Grieve had 5 RBIs in '97. Welcome to the show Mr. Castro. We hope you stay for awhile.