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Anxiety closely follows Strasburg; Shadows loom of Wood, Prior.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Ben Goessling, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

FORT WORTH, Texas -- It began with a couple of steps off the pitching rubber, just a quick break to stretch. Then as Stephen Strasburg bent at the waist to stretch his trunk, the shrouded conversations multiplied.

By the time pitching coach Rusty Filter and San Diego State's training staff trotted out to the mound to check on Strasburg after he issued a four-pitch walk in the eighth inning of the Mountain West Conference quarterfinals last month, the whispers had morphed into full-volume worry.

Strasburg threw one more pitch after the walk and was lifted for closer Addison Reed, and then the news raced out of Texas Christian University's Lupton Stadium on a current of wireless streams and satellite links. ESPN said Strasburg had strained his oblique muscle; some reports called it a broken rib despite Strasburg's own assurances he was fine.

But by the next morning, Aztecs coach Tony Gwynn's cell phone was lighting up - including a call from his brother - wondering whether the nation's most prized prospect had cracked under the stress of his triple-digit fastball and swooping slider weeks before the combination was to make him rich.

"We got up this morning like, 'What's going on?' I was talking to my Internet guys - 'Did you guys say oblique? Did

you say rib cage?' And it was, 'No, Tony! We didn't say [that]!' And they just come out of the...

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