And really, it’s unclear who. Could be himself in some dissociative episode. Hard to say.
All I know is that on Friday night he pumped nothing but fastballs to Jason Heyward and, eventually, Heyward made him pay for it by hitting a key RBI double. After the game, Adam Kilgore of the Washington Post reports, Strasburg had this to say:
Sounds like he’s being critical of whoever chose that approach to Heyward. Except Nats pitching coach Steve McCatty said that “every one of these guys has the ability to go out and make pitches of what they want to do . . . I don’t force, nor have I forced, any of these guys. They know how to pitch, and they’re trying to make the pitches they wanted to use.”
Fact: pitchers shake catchers off if they don’t like the pitch in a given situation. I have no idea who first decided to throw all those fastballs to Heyward, but it seems to me that Strasburg has the final say over what pitch to throw. And that, even if it’s pretty common for a pitcher and the catcher/pitching coach/manager to disagree on an approach, you normally don’t hear that disagreement bubbling out into public comments like these.