Mike Rizzo spoke the magic words. After watching Stephen Strasburg pitch in a Class AA minor league game last week, the Nationals’ general manager told Washington reporters that Strasburg “certainly needs more work down in the minor leagues.”

Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. Maybe Rizzo’s remark was just the latest use of a general manager’s favorite euphemism. Based on developments in recent years, when a general manager offers that observation about a young player, he often means don’t expect to see him until late May or early June. By keeping the player in the minors until then, the team gains additional reserve time, delaying his eligibility for salary arbitration and free agency for a year.

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Score one for the steroids zealots. They sure showed that Bud Selig.

The commissioner, long a target of the steroids zealots, took advantage in January of Mark McGwire’s admission that he used steroids to declare baseball’s bad times behind it.

“The so-called steroid era,” the commissioner declared, “is clearly a thing of the past.”

Selig’s self-congratulatory words were still sitting out there in cyberspace when a starting major league pitcher tested positive during spring training for using an illegal performance-enhancing substance.

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John Smoltz and Brad Penny began last season as pitchers for the Red Sox, Smoltz on the disabled list, Penny on the active roster. Both veterans pitched for the Red Sox during the season, and both were released by the Red Sox during the season.

Smoltz, 11 years older than Penny, is not playing this year. He is analyzing. Penny is pitching, and he is pitching well. Not that 10 days make a season, but better to give up one earned run in two starts and 14 innings than 11 earned runs in 9 innings, which is what Penny did in his first two starts for the Red Sox.

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