August 11, 2024
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Here is this week's question...
After winning the first game of the double header, in a 1-1 tie, Aaron Boone had Gerrit Cole begin the sixth inning. He quickly retired the first batter he faced. At that point Cole had thrown 90 pitches.
If you were the manager, would you have taken Cole out in that spot?
Please share your respectful comments below.
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I would have asked Cole how his elbow felt, the one that sidelined him for so long, and asked him to give an honest answer. Based on his answer, I would make that decision. If Cole said it felt tired, I would take him out. If he said it was fine, I would have at least let him finish that inning, then take him out. The thing to remember with Cole is that he is recovering from an elbow injury that was serious enough that it sidelined him for the first 3 months of the season. If the Yankees still have World Championship aspirations, they are going to NEED Cole as their ace, and shouldn't risk further injury to…
No.
Remember the days when multiple pitchers had 20 or more complete games, threw 120 or more pitches a game, and regularly threw as mnay as 300 innings a year. Did it hurt there arms? No. Several of them pitched for 20 years, and won 300 games.
Now they are babied, and pulled around 90 pitches. Warren Spahn had 382 complete games over 21 years, with 63 shutouts, twice 300 innings. He didn't rely on strikeouts, avering about 4 1/2 per 9 innings. Was he a robot? Today's pitchers are trained from the minors to go 5 to 6 innings, to protect their arms, yet there are more sore arms today than ever. A complete game today, is a headline.
HECK NO!
(That "heck" is for Paul. Left to my own devices, I likely would have selected a different intensifier.)
who the heck can answer that question, reasonably, without having any information as to Cole's medical or mental condition?
No I wouldn't have. But the move was obviously pre-planned and pre-determined, including who was coming in following him.
But I see this problem is not just up here, but in the minors too. Yoendrys Gomez is a starter back in AAA, but only 3 innings at a time, Hampton only had 2.1 IP and 26 pitches yesterday, Barclay was allowed to take another beating..yeah, another DH for them, but they have 16 pitchers on their active roster, enough to not let that happen. Their entire pitching philosophy, based on data and cold hard numbers, with no room to paying mind to what their eyes are showing them is total crap in my opinion. It's too much pitching by the…