Craig, when you find yourself making the same arguments as Rob Dibble it’s time to quit.

Meanwhile, it makes sense to me (but remember, I see in four dimensions simultaneously, in purely fractal terms, and play Ouija Scrabble when it rains, so things make sense to me in a way that would seem merely chaotic to the rest of you) that until somebody compiles records and extrapolates stats about the success or irrelevance of shutting down post-UCL transplant pitchers, we’ll never have any stats to work with.

And Marty, if you’re going to protest that there’s no control group involved here, well yeah, I agree. So we’ll just publish Rizzo’s findings in The Journal of Irreproducible Results, and I won’t have to cough up a hundred bucks and change for a subscription to Nature.

Yocum and Rizzo spoke on Aug. 13, as Strasburg approached his innings limit. The Nationals ended Strasburg’s season after his Sept. 7 start.

Yocum said he stands behind the Nationals’ decision to shut down Strasburg.

Rizzo declined to comment.

Yocum also issued the following statement:

“I would like to correct the misimpression generated from today’s L.A. Times article, that I have not been a participant in discussions with the Washington Nationals regarding the recovery strategy for pitcher Stephen Strasburg. In fact, I have been contacted repeatedly and have had numerous discussions with the Nationals GM Mike Rizzo and the team’s medical personnel, as recently as mid-August. While the final decision was up to the team, as is standard practice, I was supportive of their decision and am comfortable that my medical advice was responsibly considered.”

Done. No more stories.

Even if it turns out that Rizzo misled us Nats fans about The Shutdown(tm), my acceptance of the decision itself will not change. As I said elsewhere, this was both a medical and personnel decision. Not just about the condition of the kid’s elbow, but about his future performance as an MLB pitcher. Yes, medicine (limited as it was) should have been considered. But it was a baseball decision, and the responsible baseball person (Rizzo) made it.

As for Boras’ recollections, don’t care.