Lose The Pitch Count!

My son Jalen is a pretty good pitcher for a nine-year-old. He can throw- a two and a four-seamer. He also has a very good change up and he’s even experimenting with the circle change favored by the New York Mets’ Johan Santana.

Sweet!

He throws strikes and that’s he secret of pitching regardless of the level of play.

With his upcoming start, he has a pitch count of 75.

When he hits 75 pitches, he’s done for the week. He can’t pitch until the next week.

This is good for developing nine-year-olds, but pitch count is the new four-letter word in Major League Baseball.

When New York Yankee pitcher Chien-Ming Wang tossed a 93-pitch complete game against the Boston Red Sox on April 11, I almost fell out of my chair.

Complete game?

Complete game?

Was the Wayback Machine set for 1986?

Every major league club is looking for pitching help because their staffs can’t go deep into the game and then the manager goes to the bullpen they get burned out by July.

If your starting pitcher goes seven innings, or heaven forbid, completes the game, you save the bullpen for another day.

If pitches are restricted by not only pitch counts, but as in some young pitchers, innings count, how in the name of Bob Gibson are they ever going to learn to pitch with their second wind when they are gassed after 6.3 innings?

Baseball announcers are always mentioning the pitch count. Stadiums have the pitch count number up on the scoreboard for everyone to see and hit the panic button when the triple digits are posted.

Former ballplayer Frank Tepedino, who was a teammate of both Mickey Mantle and Hank Aaron, remembers back in the day when the pitch count was just a reference number.

“If a pitcher couldn’t go seven innings, he was put in the bullpen,” recalled Tepedino.

Seven?

If six innings is a quality start, then seven must mean 10 years at 22 million a year.

Jalen, keep working on that circle change.