Too Many Pitches?

I've seen Hawks starter Toshiya Sugiuchi with his arm and elbow practically encased in ice after games, so I guess it depends on the pitcher. I had heard that Matsuzaka didn't ice his arm, but I don't know how accurate that is.

If you ask me, MLB needs to take a page from the Japanese concerning starters. Everybody's talking about how there will never be another 300-game winner. You want to know why? They're wussifying starters over here. They're trained to go 6 innings and nothing more. I hate that. I love seeing complete games from tireless pitchers, which is why I like Pro Yakyu (and, on the MLB side of things, Roy Halladay) so much.

I think it should really depend on the pitcher. Look at someone like Nolan Ryan whose fastball would actually get faster as the game wore on. It was like the first 2-3 innings were just him warming up.

Or look at someone like Tim Wakefield or Greg Maddux, who's pitch arsenal isn't exactly going to wear out a shoulder. Why should they be limited to 100 pitches?

Wow, OK. I didn't notice that Kishi threw 171 pitches in that game. That's pretty insane. And that was only 9 innings.

I always repeat it but I'm still really sad over the 188-pitch, 12-inning complete tie game that Kanehisa Arime threw for Rakuten against Lotte in 2006. There's no reason to do that to a guy. He was barely effective at all the rest of that year. And sure, it happened in September, but that's no excuse.

Hm, as for Sugiuchi, he's averaged 123 pitches per start (and about 8 innings) this season, with a high of 154 and a low of 91 (the only time he threw under 100). I worry about him, too. (Though it was Wada who was involved in that outing against Kishi.)

I look at a guy like Shinji Imanaka, who had one dominant season at the age of 22 where he threw 249 innings, followed by three more of high usage. He then got hurt and was done by age 30.

Maybe he could have enjoyed a longer career if his workload had been better managed as a young pitcher.

There are less over-40 and effective pitchers in Japan, and this may very well have to do with pitch counts.

But then again, NPB pitchers pitch only once a week, as opposed to MLB pitchers going every 5 days, so at the end of the season the number of innings and pitches racked up is about the same across the Pacific (with NPB having fewer games than MLB, too).

And 100 pitches is just a rule of thumb, there is no scientific proof. Every pitcher has a different pitch count limit where their effectiveness drops down cliffs. Matsuzaka's got a rubber arm, but the 5 day rotation wore him down at the end of last season.

Lots of research to be done here for both NPB and MLB clubs and their trainers.

Too many pitches have a culmination effect which might not be noticeable for several seasons. It is sometimes nice to see pitchers battle a long time for their complete game, but it should be a rare event. Otherwise careers are cut short and Japanese baseball is littered with examples of players who have suddenly lost the ability to pitch because of over-pitching.

Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks' starting pitchers were over-pitching, it was really the truth.

1. They were power pitchers and high pitch count pitchers, not ground-out pitchers. Each pitcher had three breaking balls: Wada's slider, change-up, and fork; Arakaki's slider, cutter, and fork; Sugiuchi's slider, curve, and change-up; and Saitoh's slider, fork, and curve. Each breaking ball results in higher pitch counts.


2. Sadaharu Oh, the team's manager, admitted that he over worked his pitchers. Wada pitched 3,358 NP, 195 K, 189.0 IP, 8 CG in 2003. Arakaki pitched 3,131 NP, 177 K, 192.1 IP, 9 CG in 2004. Sugiuchi pitched 3,200 NP, 218 K, 196.2 IP, 8 CG in 2005. Saitoh pitched 3,138 NP, 205 K, 201.0 IP, 8 CG in 2006.


3. They didn't have enough time to rest. Arakaki threw 168 pitches, Wada threw 166 pitches, Sugiuchi threw 156 pitches, Saitoh threw 155 pitches. They usually threw more than 120-130 pitches per game. Not until 6 days, they ought to throw another game. They were very tired. They didn't take their best performance into the playoffs at the end of each year.