Strasburg's Arizona Fall League stint consisted of five starts, four of them borderline-brilliant -- a combined 16 1/3 innings with 19 strikeouts and only two earned runs allowed -- and one humbling, embarrassing disaster. But when the last man to have coached Strasburg in a competitive situation looks back now, it was that disastrous performance -- 2 2/3 innings, seven hits (including three homers) and seven earned runs allowed -- that stands out. "I loved every second of that," said Paul Menhart, the pitching coach for the Phoenix Desert Dogs of the AFL, and for the Potomac (Va.) Nationals, which is Washington's high Class A affiliate. "He learned more from that one outing than from the rest of them combined." Yanked unceremoniously in mid-inning, Strasburg took a seat on the Desert Dogs' bench and stewed silently for a while, until finally Menhart sat down next to him and suggested Strasburg go inside to the clubhouse and get his arm iced. Instead, Strasburg paused for a few more seconds, then said slowly and purposefully: "That will never happen again." Strasburg didn't mean he will never be hammered again in a game; inevitably, he will. "He meant the way he went about giving up those types of hits, the way he ran away from his fastball because one got hit out of the park," Menhart said. "We sat there and talked for a while, and he did most of the talking. And he was dominant from then on." It was either an awful coincidence or a terrible omen that Strasburg was scratched from his two biggest starts of the AFL season -- one in the league all-star game, the other in the championship game (both representing the only times his performances would have been televised) -- because of freak injuries. In the former instance, Strasburg woke up with a stiff neck. Menhart believes he solved that issue by ordering the phenom not to sleep with so many pillows. Then, the day before the championship game, Strasburg was tossing a ball in the outfield during batting practice when he caught his spikes in the turf, twisted awkwardly and heard two "pops" coming from his knee. He went down and eventually was carted off in a golf cart, but an MRI exam revealed no damage to the knee and Strasburg says he is 100 percent healthy. "When you hear a kid say, 'I heard two pops,' that scares the daylights out of you," Menhart said. "But then he said he had had it happen once in the past and it was nothing. So I knew he would be fine." Despite the setbacks, the Nationals viewed Strasburg's AFL performance as a triumph -- proof that their prized phenom could not only compete, but dominate at times against hitters who, at least in some instances, will be in the big leagues by the end of 2010. The gushing over Strasburg's ability and potential was reaching epic heights. "Eight is the highest [grade] on our grading scale. I'd just say, in grading Strasburg, take the highest guy you've ever seen, and [add] two grades to it," said Jay Robertson, a longtime scout and special assistant to Nationals General Manager Mike Rizzo. "Nine times out of 10, you see the hyped guy, and it's not what it was built up to be. In this case, it was even better than I expected." Many people both inside and outside the Nationals organization expect the club to start Strasburg at Potomac, where the weather is warmer in April than in Syracuse or Harrisburg (homes of the team's Class AAA and AA affiliates, respectively), and where Strasburg can continue to work with Menhart, Potomac's pitching coach. Five starts at Potomac and, say, five more in Harrisburg would put Strasburg in Washington by June. It would also cut into Strasburg's big-league service time just enough to delay his reaching free agency until after 2016, as opposed to 2015 -- a justifiable line of reasoning, given the franchise's record-setting investment in him. In the meantime, there will be almost zero marketing of him in Washington. His image, with no voice-over, will appear fleetingly near the end of a MASN commercial -- but no billboards, no print ads, no media guide cover. "We're in business of marketing whatever assets we have," Nationals President Stan Kasten said. "But one thing we have to balance is overexposure -- not in terms of our marketing, but in terms of impeding his progress." Strasburg's availability to the media will be limited -- with the team requiring interview requests go through the public relations department -- and for the first time the team is bringing in a media-training company to address the team in spring training. * * * His bullpen session over -- one down, perhaps 100 to go before the end of the year -- Strasburg walked slowly and silently to the Nationals' minor league clubhouse. Nobody stopped him. In the parking lot, his mother, his wife and various members of their families waited for him. When he got there, they loaded up and headed west on the Bee Line Expressway. There were still four days to fill before Friday's official reporting date for the Nationals' pitchers and catchers. Four days before a hellfire of media members and autograph hounds, and batters itching to prove something, is unleashed upon him. Four days left in Stephen Strasburg's youth. So the kid was going to Disney World. --

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