(Jason O. Watson - GETTY IMAGES) The best part about a blowout Nats win, besides the freedom to go to sleep early, is the freedom granted to the team’s announcers to talk about whatever they like.

Monday night, for instance, as the Nationals built a two-touchdown lead, MASN color guy F.P. Santangelo started riffing on the Bob Carpenter Jammage meter. The more jammage, the better.

A little while later, there was another down moment.

“Hey, did you see the headline today?” Carpenter asked Santangelo. “Another baseball expert, Stephen A. Smith,  has weighed in on Strasburg, calling it a disgrace.”

 “Oh,” Santangelo dead panned. “All right.”

 “Another baseball genius,” Carpenter added.

 “Well, I think they should let him go,” Santangelo said. “I saw this on the internet today, so I can’t take credit for it: I think they should let Strasburg finish the season. Because according to the Mayan calendar, there’s gonna be no next year. I mean, let him go, right? After Dec. 21^st the world’s gonna end, so what are you saving him for?”

 “Yeah, I’d forgotten about that,” Carpenter agreed.

Will Tuesday night bring another blowout? Who knows. Just in case, here’s some more material. ESPN’s First Take, knowing a dead and beaten horse when it sees one, returned to the Strasburg topic on Monday.

“I think this is one of the craziest things I’ve ever seen in sports,” Rob Parker said. “It’s like the old saying, don’t fix it if it ain’t broke. Here you are tinkering, trying to worry about 10 years from now.

“If this guy had any issues whatsoever, I’m with them. Ok, he has a twinge, he doesn’t feel right, he feels fatigued, his velocity has dropped as the season’s gone on, warning signs, ok? No warning signs.

“The Washington Nationals have a chance not only to go to the World Series, but to win the World Series....They’ve got all the ingredients to win, and if you’re going to act as if well if we don’t do it this year, we’ll do it next year. Baseball doesn’t work like that. This is a magical moment, when things have all aligned. Everybody’s playing well. The situation is good. You have to take advantage of it. It’s about wining baseball games, it’s about the chance to win the World Series. This overbabying of Strasburg is ridiculous.”

 Another baseball genius.

Related

Dennis Eckersley on shutting down Strasburg

Stephen A. Smith on shutting down Strasburg

Kevin Millar on shutting down Strasburg

Jake Peavy on shutting down Strasburg

Mike Rizzo on shutting down Strasburg

Davey Johnson on shutting down Strasburg

Gio Gonzalez on shutting down Strasburg

Stephen Strasburg on shutting down Strasburg