Five years ago, the Red Sox nearly confronted the same horrible two-word counterfactual inquiry that will haunt the 2012 Washington Nationals all offseason: What if?

What if the Nationals hadn’t shut down Stephen Strasburg? What if the dominating right-hander had been the Game 1 and Game 5 starter (relegating Gio Gonzalez to a Game 2 outing)? Or, even if on a restricted workload, could he have come in and impacted the end of a game as David Price did in 2008, when, as a rookie, he closed out the Rays’ Game 7 win in the ALCS against the Sox?

Would Washington have won its first playoff series since 1924? Would Strasburg have avoided the meltdown that Gonzalez endured in a 36-pitch fifth inning on Friday that set in motion the Cardinals comeback that ended with a history-making 9-7 St. Louis win? 

There’s no way to know the answer to any of those questions, of course. Strasburg may have spit the proverbial bit in his first exposure to the postseason. Even if Strasburg had dominated in two potential starts, the reconfigured Nationals rotation might not have done enough to allow Washington to advance. 

Moreover, there’s the possibility that the Nationals were right. Perhaps Strasburg would have faced some long-term health risks had he kept pitching, or had his innings been managed differently (whether through truncated outings or skipped starts) from the fashion in which Washington proceeded. 

But the empty feeling, the unanswerable curiosity of what might have been, will loom over the 2012 Nationals for months if not years. Five years earlier, the Red Sox narrowly avoided a similar fate. 

There is little precedent for what the Nats did with Strasburg, shutting down a pitcher who was as overpowering as any in the league in deference to that hurler’s long-term future. But the Red Sox came just about as close to making such a choice as any other team in recent memory.

In 2007, Clay Buchholz made an astonishing major league debut. After making a joke of his competition in Double-A Portland and Triple-A Pawtucket, he reached the big leagues in late-August, and in his four-outing big league debut, tossed a no-hitter en route to a 1-3 record and 1.59 ERA in four outings (three starts) spanning 22 2/3 innings. 

His stuff looked as good as that of anyone on the Red Sox staff. The 22-year-old appeared poised to be a postseason difference-maker, whether as a starter or reliever. 

Instead, as the season wrapped up, the Sox announced that Buchholz -- based on tests that revealed some loss of shoulder strength -- would not take part in the playoffs. Instead, he was being shut down and sent to Arizona to work out at Athletes’ Performance. 

At the time, former Sox GM Theo Epstein explained the decision thusly:

“Even in the postseason, you would never ask a young pitcher to do something that you knew would be risky for his health,” said Epstein. “Let's say we got to Game Seven of the World Series and we had a young rookie pitcher. We knew that if he threw 140 pitches in the game that there would be a good chance we'd win the World Series but that his arm would fall off, you would not send him out there to throw 140 pitches.

“We'd never do that. No one wants to win the World Series but miss the playoffs for three years in a row. The way you win a World Series is by being in the playoffs, in our own words, eight out of ten years. If we get in this year, it will be four out of five. We've won one. This year will hopefully be two. That's the way we try to build championship teams.”

Buchholz understood the logic, but it didn’t make the reality of watching the postseason on TV much easier to stomach. As a competitor, he wanted to be on the mound for the most meaningful games of his life. 

“The team being on the road, eventually winning the World Series and me not being able to be there, that wasn’t a good feeling. But I knew they were doing it for the good of the rest of my career,” said Buchholz. “I wanted to pitch, but that was their deal. They told me that before September even started, I was going to pitch a certain number of innings and that was going to be it for me. 

“It was rough for me, but not nearly as rough as it is for him, I bet.”

Indeed, the parallels only run so far. After all, Buchholz was the September call-up who seemingly represented an X-factor come October. Strasburg, on the other hand, was an All-Star who went 15-6 with a 3.16 ERA and 11.1 strikeouts per nine innings in 28 starts. 

“It’s got to be tough on him, knowing that he was one of the main pieces of that puzzle to get them to where they’re at. To not be able to do anything about it in the postseason is pretty tough for him, I think,” said Buchholz just prior to the start of the playoffs. “I think it hurts the team more than anything, but I think they’re doing it because he’s going to be pitching for a long time in that organization. I think doing it, there’s guys that get to the playoffs in their first season and never go back. It’s tough in that aspect, but they are trying to keep him healthy to pitch for a long time.” 

“I think they’re banking on going to the playoffs a lot the next couple years. I hope that’s the case, for his sake.”

Still, the idea that the Nationals will be back in position to make a postseason run with Strasburg is no given. Buchholz acknowledged that he worried that he might never have the opportunity to pitch in the postseason while watching the Red Sox navigate a tightrope -- most notably, when the team won three straight elimination games after falling behind, 3-1, in the best-of-seven ALCS against the Indians -- en route to their 2007 title. 

That concern ended up being unfounded, at least in part. Buchholz ended up starting for the Red Sox in Game 3 of the 2009 Division Series against the Angels, putting the Sox in position to win that game before Jonathan Papelbon’s blown save ended Boston’s season. 

“It was fun. Had a good time with it, but haven’t been able to do one since. That just goes to show you how hard it is,” said Buchholz. “Everybody knows how hard it is to get to that point, regardless of how good on paper your team is.”

The Nationals have a young, wildly talented core that suggests there will be more opportunities to play in the postseason. But there are no givens. 

That is a reality that might have confronted the Red Sox in 2007 had they not overcome their deficit to the Indians to reel off three straight wins and march into the World Series, where they swept the Rockies. Because the Sox ended that year as champions, they were not left to reflect wistfully on what might have been with Buchholz on the mound in October. 

The Nationals, whose offseason started on Friday, are not so fortunate. And unless or until they win a championship, the question of a missed opportunity -- fairly or not -- will loom over the franchise, a revisionist hypothetical that will never have an answer.