Dusty Baker ruining his shortstop's arm?

And besides, Dusty is keeping his pitchers to a strict 180-pitch pitch count.

It’s not uncommon to have a position player pitch in a blowout.

I was watching MLB last night while Janish was pitching. It was very entertaining listening to the vastly differnet opinions of Reynolds and Leiter on the subject. Leiter didnt think there was anything wrong with it and Reynolds thaught it should be banned.

Dusty didn’t do anything any other manager wouldn’t do. There is no evidence that Dusty doesn’t care about his player’s careers; none. When he pitched Wood and Prior long in ‘03, no other coach on the staff had any problem with it, neither did Wood or Prior. If you are any student of the game, you would understand that pitch counts are a relatively new concept in the game, and that pitchers in the past would routinely throw 200 or more pitches a game. Prior and Wood, and their injuries, have much more to do with their faulty mechanics; and the failure of many coaches throughout their careers’ in correcting them. Dusty got a bad rap in Chicago, and it continues to this day. Let it go.

Move on guys seriously. It is getting old.

For you Dusty bashers here is are some stats for you:

Playoff series wins in a CUBS uniform:

Dusty 1, Lou 0

Playoff games won in a CUBS uniform:

Dusty 6, Lou 0

Playoff games lost in a CUBS uniform:

Dusty 6, Lou 6

Apperances in the playoffs in a Cubs uniform:

Dusty 1, Lou 2

So really, NIETHER have done anything super for the Cubs, so get over it and move on. If Lou’s team does the same thing that they have done the past few years, the Dusty bashers will soon become Lou bashers.

Oh come on. That is only overusing your arm if you’re gunning it as hard as you can. I didn’t see Janish pitch, but I imagine that like most people in that role, he was (or should have been) tossing at a BP speed. The idea is not to dominate the other lineup, but to make them put it in play where, inevitably, at least half the time they will make an out.

On the topic of pitch counts, how many pitches do you think a typical pitcher throws just while warming up for a game? Or warming up between innings? If you want a sense of what a pitcher’s real limit reasonably should be, you have to add that to the 100-115 recorded pitches thrown per game. I don’t know the answer, but my guess is in a typical start with 100+ recorded pitches, there are another 60-70 as part of warming up (maybe 20 before the game, 7 or so before each of 6 or 7 subsequent innings).

While we’re on the topic, I don’t see this gem among the posts about other times where this was done:

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20021211&content_id=184550&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=null

Gracie for Cy Young!