Nationals Send Stephen Strasburg To Double-A Despite Impressive Spring

On Friday, we noted that Nationals phenom Stephen Strasburg was competing with a handful of pitchers to claim the final spot on the Opening Day roster. As expected, though, the team has decided to take the conservative route to Strasburg's inevitable major league debut. From our Nationals blog, Federal Baseball:

As several sources were suggesting last night, the Washington Nationals held a meeting this morning during which they decided to send both of their '09 1st Round picks, Stephen Strasburg and Drew Storen, to the minors (Double-AA Harrisburg for Storen and most likely Strasburg) to start the season, in spite of the fact that the two were arguably (I'm being nice) the best starter and reliever, respectively, in the Nats' major league camp.

Throughout his three Spring Training starts, Strasburg's amazing stuff has lived up to expectations.

Displaying a fastball that reached 98 mph and a slider-curve hybrid that hitters had trouble reading out of his hand, Strasburg went 1-0 with a 2.00 ERA, allowed eight hits, walked one and struck out 12 in nine innings.

Federal Baseball is picking up hints that Strasburg wasn't fully expecting to get sent down to the minors. Check out the rest of the post for more.