High School Kid Pitches Fourth Consecutive No-Hitter

Not if most of the outs were strikeouts.

A bigger concern would be the number of breaking balls he threw over the four games. That takes more of a toll than the total number of pitches.

 

http://blogs.tampabay.com/preps/2009/04/schuster-tosses-3rd-consecutive-nohitter.html

To be fair, these games were spread out over 19 days, with at least four between each start, and one was only five innings.

According to the story I linked here, he threw 94 pitches in the third no-hitter. Not quite the abuse heaped upon Kerry Wood's arm, but perhaps some reason for concern. I just wonder how heavily he is relying on sliders rather than just throwing the fastball by people, which was another thing that led to Wood's arm troubles.

Edit: A_QB beat me to the part about breaking pitches.

 

Well, we're not major-league scouts advising against drafting the kid. We're just guessing.

Given the information available, I'd say the odds that one of the two situations described applies is better than 50/50.

 

IIRC, Wood threw 180 pitches in both ends of a double-header right around the day he was drafted.

 

I heard that last night. Quite the cautionary tale. Kid oughta take the first-round money and run.

 

You are correct. It was two games of a UIL playoff series played on the same day the weekend before the draft that year.

 

http://www.maxpreps.com/florida/baseball/mitchell-(new-port-richey)/patrick-schuster/stats.aspx?athleteid=17d8a64a-370d-47a4-85b9-237d2a615e27&ssid=adbd6bc0-7585-418e-8d8c-bf56eb02934e&urpath=,local,player&group=4

FWIW, here's the kid's pitching stats on MaxPreps.

And according to this story, he threw 105 pitches in the most recent no-hitter. That number courtesy of his mom (gotta love high school sports).
http://www.tampabay.com/sports/baseballpreps/article993893.ece

 

Four starts in 19 days is hardly that taxing. 105 pitches isn't going to kill him.

Some moron coach in South Jersey let a kid throw 188 pitches in a game a couple weeks ago. NJ has limits on the number of innings a kid can throw in a week but not on pitch counts...yet.

 

Ouch. That's just insane.

Still, as mentioned above, the type of pitches being thrown may be the bigger issue.

 

This story mentions that this high school kid from Tampa has four pitches he uses - the curve ball, slider, change-up and fastball.

 

I saw mentions of a curve and a slider in the stories linked above. I cringe reading about any high school kid messing with a slider. If he is already throwing a high percentage of curves and sliders, I wish him luck getting his bonus money before he blows his arm out.

 

I wonder if Kenny Powers will get Stevie to break his arm.