Washington Nationals' Stephen Strasburg: "I Stirred Up The Baseball World..."

The Washington Nationals made their '09 No.1 overall pick Stephen Strasburg available to the D.C. press corps this afternoon for a telephone interview to update everyone on the progress in his recovery from Tommy John surgery. The 22-year-old right-hander suffered the injury to his elbow in a game against the Philadelphia Phillies on August 21st, 12 starts into his rookie campaign, and underwent the surgery several weeks later. Since then the San Diego native has been back at home rehabbing from the procedure, and Strasburg says the process is going well, "I got my cast off about two weeks ago, and I've just been getting my range of motion back. It's going really well, feels real good and I should be starting the actual rehab process shortly." 

Strasburg says he's continued to follow the Nationals in his absence, "I've been watching the team very closely," but in his own words, "It is pretty hard to watch because I wish I was out there with everybody, but it is what it is." I asked the right-hander if the surgery and the way that the season ended overshadowed what he was able to accomplish in the short time he was able to pitch in the majors, and Strasburg responded that, "You guys can decide that, I'm chalking it up as a great season, it's unfortunate for this to happen, but I went up there, I stirred up the baseball world well enough that it had more people becoming Nats fans and I know they're going to be there when I come back in a year, so I'm not too worried about it and I'm going to work as hard as I possibly can to get back out there and show everybody what I have to bring to the table." 

(ed. note - "I'll post the full transcript as soon as I can transcribe it.")