At long last, there is a date for the Major League debut of Stephen Strasburg — June 8. (nationals.com)

I have had tickets to the June 8 Washington Nationals vs. Pittsburgh Pirates game for over a month. The Maryland Bureau Chief (so is the Pentagon City Bureau Chief) is coming along — dude’s never had a half-smoke.

Why they are waiting this long? Maybe they want Ivan Rodriguez behind the plate instead of Wil Nieves. Speaking of Nieves, more than you ever wanted to know about him and his wife in this article. Anyway, the timing is good for me, but bad for Nats fans because Strasburg’s next several starts will be on the road. The last one being in Baltimore which will surely mean even more Washington money flowing into the undeserving hands of Peter Angelos. Don’t do it folks, if he had his way, we’d never have gotten Strasburg or the Nats.

The debut is subject to other factors of course, like weather and the pitcher’s health. Strasburg has to get through his June 3 start for AAA Syracuse. The Nats are on the record with it now, so they aren’t going to mess around with the date and deal with the backlash. Right? Either way, the ticket mania has returned (DC Sports Bog, The Post)

Yesterday, the Nats beat the Houston Astros 14-4 (The Post) after losing 4 of 6 against the Giants and Padres, respectively. Luis Atilano beat another All-Star, this time Roy Oswalt. Oswalt got ejected because he didn’t like the strike zone in the third though. The damage was already done though. MissChatter will be really busy with those Rookie vs. All-Star commercials, that’s two in a row for Atilano. Last time it was Tim Lincecum.