The Road to Omaha: NCAA Baseball Tournament Thread

Some would say he shirked the responsibility of looking out for his player's health.

There isn't one MLB manager in the game today that would let a STARTER throw 169 pitches. Even if it was the seventh game of the damn world series. This guy let his closer, who had never thrown more than like two innings all year, go out and throw 13 of them. In a college baseball game.

It was a helluva performance. The kid should be proud. But it was ridiculous to trot him back out there inning after inning after inning. You're flippin Texas for crying out loud. You've got to have more arms in your bullpen than just Wood. Use em.

 

Just this year, the NCAA mandated rosters be reduced to 35 players MAX per team and the tournament roster is a lot smaller than that. I want to say its 27.

And this wasn't some regular season game...It's the frickin' NCAA regional game. Give me a break..His arm will be fine and Wood said he wanted to go back out each time.

 

That does seem like an extreme number of pitches. But done once, after a season of conditioning, etc., he should be OK.

NCAA tournament roster is 25, submitted before the regional starts. You can't add or subtract from the 25-man roster for every game once it's been submitted.

FYI, Jack Morris threw 126 pitches against the Braves in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series.

 

Hear fucking hear.

You can "labor" through 90 pitches and "breeze" through 120, depending on how you're throwing. It's a manager's job to know the difference.

 

Jack Morris was 36 years old at that point.

The issue isn't pitch counts for all pitchers. It's pitch counts for players who are at an age where the muscle structure is still developing.

 

If so many managers didn't drop the ball on the issue, it'd be easier to leave it at that.

 

"Dude had at least two more innings in him."

 

And how is that any different now than it was 20, 40, 60, 80 years ago?

The human body is not meant to undergo a pitching motion naturally. Pitch counts have not changed that -- they have not reduced the stress to the shoulder and elbow, have not reduced the quantity of injuries, have not lengthened pitchers' careers. In short, it's a way for managers, teams, organizations to feel like they have some measure of control over their investments.

There is no good reason to use strict pitch counts as a be-all, end-all, except for a guy immediately returning from injury. For anyone who is reasonably healthy, it's much more important to pay attention to whether he's laboring, no matter what his pitch count is.

 

Right. And like I said. No MLB manager in today's game would let a STARTER throw that many pitches, even if it was for the damn world championship --- which I think is still a bigger deal than an NCAA Regional game. And those guys are grown men who are USED to throwing 100 to 120 pitches every time out.

Don't think the kid's arm is going to fall off or anything, I just think it was excessive. Especially for a college kid. And especially for a college CLOSER.

But hey, they won. Congrats.

 

I think someone is missing the point of games-namely, the competition. If Wood's arm was tired, he could've said so. No coach would do anything but yank a college pitcher who said he was toasted. Wood wanted to compete, and did so gloriously. Glory is the point. BuckW is right. All pitchers are at risk of a career-ending or disabling injury with every appearance, be it 170 pitches or 17. Wood did what he thought was best for his life, and I agree with his decision. What he did will be remembered forever. That was worth a possible risk to a possible big league career as far as he was concerned.

 

Right. But isnt it up the coach, at some point, to make that decision for him? Of course the dude wanted to keep pitching --- what sort of competitor (other than a Drew brother perhaps) would ask to come out of a game like that?

I covered a high school baseball state finals where a kid threw 240-something pitches in the span of 24 hours. It was like 90 on the first day and a 150 more the next. The coach said he asked the kid if he wanted to come out and he said "no." Well, of course he said no. He wants to win the damn state championship.
Are we OK with that, too?

Just think it's odd that managers at the HIGHEST level of the sport would never dream of having anyone on their staff throw that many pitches in a game, but some college and high school coaches apparently don't think twice about it.

Either way though, it was an unbelievable performance by Wood. Good for him.

 

Congrats to Corky Palmer for getting USM to the super regional.