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Washington Nationals vs Houston Astros: Grapefruit League Finale GameThread

Washington and Houston wrap up their Grapefruit League schedules with one more matchup in West Palm Beach, FL with Stephen Strasburg on the mound. And it’s on MASN I guess, or whatever... watch it at 1:05 PM ET.

By Patrick Reddington
MLB: Washington Nationals-Workouts Mary Holt-USA TODAY Sports

Stephen Strasburg is set to make his final Grapefruit League start this afternoon, in the last game of the spring for the Washington Nationals, who meet up with the Houston Astros in their shared Spring Training home at 1:05 PM ET.

Strasburg’s outing will be on MASN, so you can watch it before we all have to deal with two days of no baseball before the 2021 season opener with the New York Mets (at 7:09 PM ET on Thursday night 4/1/21 on ESPN).

What will we see from Strasburg today? He’s made three (official) starts so far (and pitched behind the scenes a few times), giving up four hits and four runs in eight innings (4.50 ERA), with seven walks, nine Ks, and a .148 BAA.

“Hopefully we can stretch him out to 85-90 pitches and then he’ll be right where we need him to be,” Nationals’ skipper Davey Martinez told reporters when he spoke after Sunday’s game against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Once Strasburg is done for the day?

“I think we’re going to get [Erick] Fedde in the game, he needs to throw, and then after that I think it’s — [Kyle] Finnegan will throw, I think [Wander] Suero will throw tomorrow too.”

As for the rest of the club heading into the last game in West Palm Beach?

“The boys look — they’re starting to swing the bats really well. What I like — these guys are taking their walks, they’re putting the ball in play, and that’s good,” Martinez said.

“Everything is shaping up the way that we’d like it to, so like I said, one more day and then we hop on a plane and we’re off to D.C.”

Is Martinez anxious to get back to the nation’s capital?

[ed. note - “Do you really think he’s going to admit to thinking beyond today?”]

“We’ve got one more day,” Martinez said.

“Like I said, my thing about Spring Training is getting out of here with everyone healthy. We got one more day. Today we had a scare with him [Josh] Harrison getting hit, so luckily it clipped his bat a little bit, but we just want to get out of here healthy, and once tomorrow is over I’ll feel a lot better.”

HERE’S THE NATIONALS’ LINEUP FOR THE GRAPEFRUIT LEAGUE FINALE:

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