All Right, Shut It Down.

Stephen Strasburg hoped this day wouldn't come. Davey Johnson knew this day would come. Mike Rizzo continued to insist this day would come. The Nationals will suffer because this day has come.

That's right, folks...Shutdown Day has arrived. Sooner than expected, no less. And there's a good chance that the pitching-fueled dominance that has made October baseball in the nation's capital all but a certainty for the first time since 1933 will soon come to a screeching halt.

Strasburg will be a great hurler for years to come...so how important is this year?

Strasburg had Tommy John surgery after just 12 starts in his debut 2010 season, where he went 5-3 with a 2.91 ERA and 92 strikeouts. It was a harsh blow to the highly-touted 22 year old who was expected to save baseball in DC (this was before Bryce Harper Christ graced us with His presence), and Tommy John surgery is still a procedure that is difficult to come back from, with a recovery period of around a year. He managed 5 starts in the end of 2011, posting a 1.50 ERA and a minuscule 0.71 WHIP. He was everything the Nats hoped he would be when they selected him with the top pick in the 2009 draft: strong, smooth, and virtually untouchable. Then, just before his first full season in 2012, Rizzo made an announcement that immediately cast a shadow over the entire year: Strasburg would not finish out the season. He would pitch to a certain "magic number", long speculated to be around 160 innings, then be shut down for the rest of the season. He finished with 159.1 innings pitched, a 15-6 record, a 3.16 ERA, a 1.15 WHIP, and 197 strikeouts, good for an astonishing 11.13 K/9, and an even more impressive 4.10 K/BB with 48 walks.

Why not let him pitch a full year? Why not start him in the bullpen and work his way slowly into the rotation? Why not keep him inactive in the first month of the season so he could pitch in the playoffs? Why not limit his innings per start to stretch it out longer? Why not skip a few of his starts? Why not reactivate him and let him pitch in the postseason? All these questions have been shouted by everyone aware of the situation for almost 5 months now, and no reason has been given. We may never fully understand why Rizzo and the Nationals decided to handle his first full season in the majors in such a way. We'll never know what could have been if he was allowed to pitch the rest of the year, and in the playoffs, should the Nats still find themselves leading the division on October 3rd. Not many organizations willingly shut down their ace and Cy Young candidate a month before entering the playoffs, let alone after a 70 year drought.

The Nationals still have good pitching. Offseason acquisition Gio Gonzalez now becomes the de facto ace, if he wasn't already (18-7, 2.98 ERA), and Jordan Zimmermann (10-8, 2.99 ERA) has also been quietly having a fantastic season. With a revolving door of Edwin Jackson, Ross Detweiler, John Lannan and Chien-Ming Wang occupying the last three spots in the rotation, the Nats have managed to stave off the advances of Chipper Jones performing his swan song with the Braves, and with some luck in the rest of the division absolutely falling apart this season, they capitalized on their golden opportunity.

So why shut Strasburg down? This kind of season probably won't happen again for Washington. They are built to last, with a solid core of young players and veterans, the offense has come alive in ways they couldn't have imagined as the Expos, and the pitching, of course, has been stellar. The Nats are excellent, to be sure. The Braves are also excellent, and are getting even better. The Phillies won't be cellar-dwellers two years in a row. The Marlins, once they figure out how to bat Giancarlo Stanton in every position in the lineup, will be tough to beat. Even the Mets won't be a joke for too much longer. This seems almost like a season of destiny. It just had to be the same season that the man who should have stood at the forefront of this magical run would be deactivated with a month to go before the playoffs.

Can these two help bring a championship to Washington? We never expected that they might do it this season, so why not next year?

It's not up to us. Hell, it's really not even up to Strasburg. Well-known for his competitive spirit, Stephen made it extremely clear all year that, while he may not have been happy with the decision, he respected Washington for making it and sticking with it, while looking out for his best interests. But in this season? This year? Why did it have to be now? This is a franchise that, even during their time in Montreal, never reached the postseason (1981 and 1994, the only years during which the Expos were possible contenders, were both shortened by strikes), and now that they're finally poised to do so, and maybe reach their first World Series ever (the Mariners are the only other team who've never played in a Fall Classic), they're willingly taking away one of the biggest reasons that got them to where they are. Yes, there's the rest of his career to consider. Sure, he's pitched more innings than he ever has in his career. OK, the thinking for the Nats is that they'll be able to maintain this level of team production for years to come. But in this game, where tides can turn and seasons can be made or broken in one game, you don't take anything for granted. You don't take any chances that haven't been carefully researched, with every possible outcome considered and the consequences that come with them understood. When it comes down to it, the front office made the decision they thought would be best for their franchise, bottom line, no matter what. They were presented with all the facts and figures from Strasburg's agent, mega-prick Scott Boras, and were able to make their own informed conclusion from that. Whether we as fans, his teammates as contenders, or Strasburg as the player in question, agree with the decision made or not, it's not up to us.

If Mike Rizzo and Davey Johnson are lucky, this decision will be meaningless in 5 years. If what they believe will happen does transpire, the Nationals will keep baseball alive in the District of Columbia for many Octobers to come, and we'll all be able to look back at this decision and laugh. But if this ends up being a Cinderella story for the ages, and the Nats intentionally shatter the glass slipper 15 minutes before midnight, this fairy tale won't have such a happy ending.