Pitch counts changing the development stages of starters. (Current Strategy).(baseball ptiching)(Brief Article)

ADMITTEDLY, THE GAME HAS changed. What happens today cannot be compared to the past. One of the new-fangled inventions that seems to have escaped popular notice is the pitch count. It isn't unusual for a manager to tell his starting pitcher, "All we want is six good innings."

There is also a new unofficial and supporting stat created by John Lowe, the respected Detroit baseball writer. It's called a "quality start": six innings with a yield of three runs or fewer. It appears to be widely accepted but there have been naysayers.

Sandy Koufax, the great Hall of Fame pitcher, is among the former players who object.

"To me, a quality start," Koufax insists, "is when the starting pitcher is still on the mound when the game is over and his teammates rush out of the dugout to congratulate him on the victory."

Today, the odds of this occurrence are higher than winning the lottery, or the Cubs winning the World Series. And the biggest deterrent, in my opinion, is the pitch count. The limit is about 110 pitches which on an average allows for a six-inning stay.

"The pitchers are trained completely different than in the past," said Larry Rothschild, the pitching coach for the Cubs and previously for the Cincinnati Reds and Florida Marlins.

"All the clubs are very protective of their pitchers." Rothschild observed. "Today's starters throw fewer innings." And surprisingly there are more injuries than ever before.