The Nationals got frontline starter Stephen Strasburg back on Sunday, but lost young stud Joe Ross to the 15-day disabled list due to right shoulder inflammation. The team announced the news just before Sunday's game against the Reds.
Strasburg only missed a few starts with his back injury. Heading into his Sunday start, he's 10-0 with a 2.90 ERA, 1.07 WHIP and 118 strikeouts in 93 innings. He's likely headed to his second All-Star Game in the next few weeks. Needless to say, he's rather important to the first-place Nationals.
So is Ross, though, and he's out with an injury to his throwing shoulder. The 23-year-old right-hander is 7-4 with a 3.49 ERA (120 ERA+), 1.26 WHIP and 79 strikeouts in 95 1/3 innings.
One thing the Ross injury does is keep Lucas Giolito in the bigs. Arguably the top pitching prospect in baseball, Giolito debuted this past week and had his outing cut short due to rain. He worked four innings and allowed only one hit while walking two.
What's interesting now is that Giolito will have the chance to make it tough for the Nats to send him back down. If he gets, say, four starts in and is impressive by the time Ross is ready to return, the Nationals will have to decide whether or not to send him down during a good string of starts or possibly demote someone like Gio Gonzalez from the rotation. Of course, someone else could get hurt in the meantime -- like Ross just did -- so this is simply something to watch.
