Murderers Row, meet Stephen Strasburg.
San Diego State's right-handed pitcher will face the Lobos' batting lineup today.
Strasburg has been portrayed as something of an urban legend, a pitcher harkening back to a story Sports Illustrated concocted about a hard-throwing ace named Sidd Finch, whose fastball whizzed by at 168 mph.
Finch was nothing more than a figment of a writer's imagination - a hoax played on April Fools' Day in 1985. But Strasburg, head coach Ray Birmingham said, is the real deal.
"He's probably as special as you'll ever see," he said.
Good thing the Lobos won't be using wooden bats, because it's been rumored that Strasburg burns more lumber than forest fires. As one of the most adorned amateur pitchers, he has a 7-0 record, a 1.49 earned-run average and has given up only 12 hits to 20 strikeouts in 54.1 innings of action.
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Strasburg has been clocked throwing anywhere from 99 to 102 mph. There are even reports than he unfurled a 103 mph pitch in a workout with the Washington Nationals, which the organization neither confirms nor denies.
During an April 11, 2008, game against Utah, Strasburg seated 23 batters, tying him for third place in college baseball for most strikeouts in a single game.
Despite all the clamoring about Strasburg, and claims by the Mountain West Conference's preseason poll that he would lead the Aztecs to a first-place regular-season finish, Birmingham remained unmoved back in early February.
"You know what you do when you square up a ball going 103 mph - where the ball goes?" Birmingham said in a preseason interview. "Way far."
On Thursday, Birmingham clarified that point, saying he meant that in good-spirited fun.
"I have to give my kids confidence," he said. "But wholeheartedly, I think we can beat them. If you want me to be scared, go find somebody else."
Truthfully, should the Lobos be shivering in the closet?
Considering they are still atop the national leaderboard in batting average, hits, doubles and triples, according to the NCAA's April 12 stats release? And considering the Lobos have prepped for Strasburg? The answer is no.
"You've seen me put that machine at Mach-9," Birmingham said. "It probably simulates somewhere in the upper 90s, and it's in your hands. Strasburg doesn't throw Mach-9. We simulate pitching with our machines, and I'm a big advocate of slowing the game down for kids."
It also helps how much text has been written on Strasburg. Endless amounts of feature stories and columns all serve as mini scouting reports, Birmingham said.
"Every time you're competing against somebody you have to understand his quirks, and that's huge in teaching hitting," he said.
The key, then, will be avoiding Strasburg's swashbuckling, boomerang curve. Birmingham said the Lobos will already expect gas.
"If you see spin, you don't swing at spin until you have to swing at spin," he said. "If he throws his curveball for a strike, we have a bigger problem."
Tonight, when the lights come on at Isotopes Park, the Lobos will look to become MythBusters - and Birmingham can only hope, at the end of the day, he won't have to chomp on his words.
"Baby, I've had to eat my words a lot of times in my life," he said. "And they go with salt and pepper really well if you mix in a salad with some Thousand Island - it's not bad."
If UNM loses and Strasburg gets the best of the Lobos, at least Birmingham and his company of sluggers can go ask hall-of-fame slugger and SDSU head coach Tony Gwynn for pointers.
"Before, I was, brrrrhhh," Birmingham said, running his index finger over his lips.
"The first time I went to San Diego and I walk out to home plate, and they're talking to me but I don't hear them, because I'm thinking, "I'm standing here with Tony Gwynn, the guy that, when I was a kid, was like, 'That's Tony Gwynn, man. That's Tony Gwynn.' I'm past that now."
Baseball vs. San Diego State
Tonight, 6 p.m.
Isotopes Park
