Pitch Counts and Game Score

One of them I've pasted below regarding pitch counts, and the varying effects of "tough innings".

Here it is, taken from the thread I linked to at the bottom of this post.....

Question:

So, does dialing down a fastball -- throwing it 91 instead of 94 -- help maintain your freshness?

Answer:

No.

Question:

More generally, there is clearly some corrollary between a heavy workload and a pitcher breaking down, but the specifics of what that corrollary is are as vague as can be. Some commentators, without any firm basis, have said that the way to get the most innings out of pitcher is to keep innings per start down, but go back to a 4-man rotation. The idea being that it is the 130 plus pitch count starts that wear a pitcher down, but outings with less than 100 pitches would permit a guy to thrive on a 4 man rotation. Do you have any sense of what an optimal workload would be and how it should be apportioned, or is the status quo the result of tried and tested practice?

Answer:

Here is how I have come to view pitching fatigue, injuries and all the things that come with them.

Example. If I throw 135 pitches in a 9-2 game, a game my team leads early and big in, I am gonna feel stiff the next day, bit sore maybe, but not nearly as sore and stiff as throwing 95 pitches over 7 innings in a 1-1 game. The game, score and pitch counts all factor in, and by pitch counts I mean if I have to throw 30 pitches in the 3rd inning with runners in scoring position all inning long, in a scoreless or close game, that's gonna take a TON out of me for later. I always call these kinda situations reaching into the tank. I feel like I can muster up two of these a game if I have too. Situations that in my mind the outcome of the game is riding on. I try and make sure the 2nd time I have to do this is after the 7th.

Example:

1998 Kevin Brown and I square off. Top of the 6th, Gary Darling behind the plate. My stuff has been very very sharp all day long, and it's 1-1 as the inning starts. I know Gary is a very tempermental Ump, he is a pretty decent ball/strikes guy, but he has his times going both ways, and this inning he went a way that wasn't gonna help me. I give up a leadoff single, 4 pitch walk, 4 pitch walk. Btw it was like mid may, and those two walks were like my 9th and 10th of the year, and I walked the guys on 2 balls Anyway, here I am, bases drunk, 0 outs, 1-1 game, versus Brown. Game is pretty much on the line in my opinion. Todd Hundley up, count goes 3-0, I step off, tie my shoes, and basically realize that I am winning or losing this game based on each pitch now, no margin for error. WOrk the count back to 3-2, 3 straight foul balls, all of them FB and all of them pitches I had to reach into my "tank" to make. 3-2 split, strike 3, one out. Hollandsworth up, exact same situation, count goes to 3-0, on 2 balls btw, work the count back to 3-2, FB away, strike 3, 2 outs. Beltre up, again count goes 3-0, which any of you that know the game know how impossible this is, getting Adrian Beltre to take three pitches, work the count back to 3-2. 4 straight foul balls, 3-2 slider, hard grounder to 2nd, inning over. WE come back and score 7 times off Brown in the bottom of the inning, and win like 12-2. I came out after 7, 110 or so pitches, but it felt like 175 to me.

When you see pitchers have to reach back early in a game and get out of jams, in my mind your getting bad with the good. It's great that he worked out of the jam, but the shot of getting 8 innings out of him is pretty much gone. Over the last few years I have really watched this as it pertains to me. WHen I have real long early innings and have to work hard to keep the game tight, I know now that that means barring a free swing fest and some 5 pitch innings, I am not going to be around for the 9th, so I put myself into late innings mode from the 5th inning on instead of waiting for the 7th to ramp it up.

The World Series in 2001 was a great example. I pitched on 3 days rest for game 4 because game 1 was a walk in the park. We got up early, and by alot, and the stress, both mentally and physically was 1/10 what it was for me after game 4. Both games I went 7 innings, but I was hanging after game 4, enough that I went to our manager and told him I didn't know how it was gonna feel for game 7 and that he should hold off a day or so before he announced anything. That all changed after sitting on the bench for game 5 and watching what happened happen.

My point is that in two completely similar statistical outings I had two completely different day afters. One game was a blowout, the other a nail biter, and those are HUGE factors in rebounding and keeping your arm healthy.

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