Stephen Strasburg proves his worth in MLB debut

There’s been plenty written about the outrageousness of the baseball card values for Washington Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg.

But he showed precisely what he was made of Tuesday night — enough to make one wonder what a 2010 Bowman SuperFractor might go for now.

Strasburg set a Nationals team record with 14 strikeouts in a 5-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates. He pitched seven innings, allowing two runs on a homer by Delwyn Young, while giving up just four hits and walking none. Strasburg also tied a team record with seven consecutive strikeouts.

His performance came up one strikeout short of tying the MLB record for most K’s in a debut. He was pulled at the start of the eighth inning after throwing 94 pitches in the game.

Heading into Tuesday night’s game, the average value of Strasburg’s cards that aren’t too rare to price in Beckett Baseball was $199.70. And obviously that doesn’t include his newest 2010 Topps card (seen here), which was released exclusively on ToppsMillion.com during the game.

Something tells this writer that the post-game “SportsCenter bump” after that first career victory will be interesting.

Update: In addition, Topps has announced that Strasburg will have cards in the remainder of its 2010 product lineup, which includes the following:

2010 Topps Allen & Ginter

2010 Topps Complete Sets

2010 Topps Tribute

2010 Topps T-206

2010 Topps Triple Threads

2010 Topps Chrome

2010 Bowman Chrome

2010 Topps Update

2010 Topps Sterling

2010 Bowman Platinum

2010 Bowman Draft Picks & Prospects

2010 Bowman Sterling

Chris Olds is the editor of Beckett Baseball. Have a comment, question or idea? Send an e-mail to him at colds@beckett.com. Follow him on Twitter by clicking here.