Pitching injuries are piling up and it’s hard to see this trend slowing down
Think of the most remarkable achievements a single player can register on a baseball diamond. Four consecutive homers by a batter … A perfect game by a pitcher … An unassisted triple play by a fielder.
Go ahead, think of them. They’re all very rare and very special events. But here’s something that’s super rare and super special: Consecutive no-hitters by a single pitcher.
It happened once — 86 years ago. Since then, no one has come close to duplicating it.
Hello, Ronel Blanco.
The Houston Astros pitcher threw a no-hitter on his first start this season. He made his second start on national television Sunday night against the Texas Rangers. As I watched I began to gasp. The innings mounted and so did the zeros. After five frames the Rangers still did not have a hit. Was it possible that we were on the cusp of baseball history?
No, it wasn’t possible. As the bottom of the sixth inning began, a relief pitcher began warming up in the Astros bullpen.
Blanco retired the first two batters he faced in the sixth. That left him ten outs away from matching one of the most amazing feats in baseball history.
Ten outs? It might as well have been 10,000. There was no way he was going to be allowed to finish that game.
Officially, the next Rangers batter, Aroldis Garcia, ended the no-hit bid with a ground ball single. But if he hasn’t done it, Joe Espada was ready to.
Espada is the Astros’ manager. He was managing a big league ballgame for only the tenth time in his life. He surely knew that he would invite sharp criticism if he removed a starting pitcher who hadn’t allowed a hit, but he was evidently ready to take the heat if necessary. The pitch count chart told him that was the right move.
Blanco had thrown 105 pitches in his first outing. Now, six days later, he was up to 90 and that was enough. Statistics show that pitchers who compile exceptionally high pitch counts run a heightened risk of sustaining arm injuries. Espada reasoned that Blanco’s health mattered more than a chance to put his name in the record book. Most managers, I suspect, would have made the same decision. At least most of today’s managers would have.
The frequency of arm injuries to pitchers is becoming a mounting problem in baseball. The number of hurlers sustaining season-ending and even career-threatening arm injuries is alarming, and constantly mounting. Nobody seems to know what to do about it.
Last week Tony Clark, the head of the Players Association, had bitter words for Commissioner Rob Manfred. Clark said the players were unanimously opposed to the existence of the pitch clock and believed that was a major contributor to arm ailments. He complained that Manfred had refused to even consider the players’ position on the matter.
The pitch clock was instituted last year and requires a pitcher to make a pitch within 20 seconds of the time he receives the ball. This year that number was lowered to 18 with runners on base.
Manfred replied that he is deeply concerned about the increasing frequency of injuries to pitchers and revealed that the medical school of Johns Hopkins University has been commissioned to study the issue. He added that no evidence has been developed that links the pitch clock to the problem.
Clark is correct with his claim that the frequency of injuries has increased since the pitch clock was introduced. What he overlooks is the fact that the frequency of injuries was growing every year before the pitch clock came into existence.
You know what else has been growing every year?
Two things.
The average velocity of pitches increases. The spin rate (revolutions per minute) on breaking balls increases. Every season those numbers are higher than the year before.
In other words, the quality of pitching improves every season, but that improvement comes at a cost.
We know that today because we have the technology to measure it. No doubt, the same thing was happening during all those years when we couldn’t measure it.
Pitchers are stronger than they used to be. Their arms move more quickly. They tighten their grip on the ball more than in the past. Their wrists snap more violently when they throw breaking pitches.
Thus, velocity increases and so does spin rate.
What hasn’t changed is the human arm.
We don’t need specialists from Johns Hopkins to tell us that every arm consists of three joints. We call them the wrist, the elbow and the shoulder. They function the way they do because of the presence of tendons.
Those tendons haven’t changed in thousands of years. They can’t be strengthened and they can’t be made more durable. If they’re over-stressed, they’re going to pop. Pitching is a good way to over-stress them and pitching the way modern pitchers pitch is almost a sure way to do it. For most of today’s pitchers the only question seems to be when, not if.
I hope the learned men and women at Johns Hopkins can come up with a workable solution to the problem, but I’m not counting on it.
The way I see it, pitching a baseball has become an exercise in ruining an arm.
I wish I could think of a nicer way to state it, but I can’t.