HS kid goes 14 innings, 194 pitches

Depends on how much junk the kid might have thrown - or not. If he was merely spotting his pitches and mixing speeds, shouldn't be a big deal.

But these days, kids don't know Tommy John. They don't think of the pitcher, but of the procedure named after him. The frequency of this procedure at the MLB level - and quite a few below - should have more of us asking more questions.

 

Way to bury the lede.

The kid won. That's what matters:

Paul Silvi ‏-- @paulsilvi 15h

Rochester HS @DFosnacht5 throws 194 pitches in 14 inn. Team beat LaCenter, 1-0. 17 K's. District Final next.

Winners win.

 

Actually, HE didn't win. Game went 17. But point taken.

 

Oh. Fuck him then.

A winner would have gutted it out, and found a way to win, even if it meant going 17.

 

Yeah. He's one of those wussies Mark's referring to. Couldn't finish the job.

 

1) I went to the school with the inept lineup that was shut out for 17 innings.

2) Two words in La Center. (Go Wildcats!)

3) Not sure where "very small" is coming from. It's the third of six classes in Washington. The Bs are small. Rochester's enrollment number is 480 (which, IIRC, is in grades 10-12 in the WIAA). And I went to school with someone who went Pac-12 and was drafted, and it's not like he was a diamond in the rough or anything.

4) Comparing baseball and softball pitchers? Really? There's a reason a lot of softball teams use exactly one all season.

 

As the brother of a 4-year varsity pitcher (including 2 seasons as the one and only pitcher on the staff), I can tell you the concept that softball pitchers can throw unlimited innings with no effect whatsoever on their arms is complete bullshit. (It is certainly much less stressful/damaging than baseball pitching but it most assuredly does have a cumulative effect.)

The main reason it happens is most softball coaches are too stupid or lazy to develop more than one pitcher at a time.

 

Or that one pitcher is 25% better than the rest of the staff and continues to be after 150 pitches ... because the motion does not put that much strain on her arm.

 

True that. Have seen quite a few kids get shelled and have to "take one for the team" as a result. And there's no equivalent of a late-inning stopper like in baseball ... yet.

 

In some states (including Indiana, and I thought maybe it was a NFHS rule, but apparently not), baseball pitchers are limited to 10 innings in a three-day period.

But, it's still bullshit, because a) there's no oversight, only the coach following the rule on the honor system and b) there's no pitch count. So a kid could throw an unlimited number of pitches over 7 innings and, under the letter of the law, come back and throw three innings the next day. Or, potentially, on the same day if the game went extras or there was a doubleheader.

I assume there will be a move toward pitch counts like they have at some youth levels, but probably only if the coaches/state associations are pushed there by fear of lawsuits.

 

I covered a Ripken state tournament last summer, and it seemed like there was one person on the tournament committee whose sole job was to track the pitchers, and they posted the info right next to the snack shack.

Both places I've covered high school ball in Calif. have a 30-out rule, rather than 10 innings. The difference? Say a kid comes in with a couple of runners on and gets the batter to hit into a double play. But only one batter was his responsibility.

 

In true Little League, they've become very vigilant about the pitch-count rule. In tournaments, the PA guy announces the count at every half-inning.