How many pitches?

[roger_that]

Say your regular starter (not your #1 guy, but not your #5 or 6 guy, just an average starter) can't buy an out one day. Hit after hit after hit. When do you decide to take him out? 7 hits? 5 runs? 25 pitches?



Current thinking concerns the number of pitches, or potential long-term damage to his arm, rather than results. In other words, if he's thrown 30 pitches but so far somehow has given up no runs, you take him out anyway, but in the past he might come out after 3 pitches if they're all HRs.



What's your thinking on this vital question?

[Edgy MD]

I ask my pitching coach if whatever's going wrong can be corrected.



I also have to distinguish whether he's being teed off on or walking the ballpark vs. whether balls are just finding holes or he's getting squeezed by the ump.



But if things are not trending well after 40 pitches, it might be time to give the opposition (and the ump) a new look at a new guy, and allow the starter to stop laboring and to focus on making whatever adjustments he needs for his next start.

[Frayed Knot]

The Mets pulled deGrom in a game three? seasons ago after just one inning despite no runs allowed. The issue was that that one inning tallied 45 pitches due mostly to a comical number of foul balls and three walks.



So what they essentially decided was that it was such a stressful inning that he shouldn't go out for the 2nd. iow, their logic was that 45 pitches without a break takes more of a toll than would the same number over three frames.



Bottom line: each case is different and part of the argument being made in the other thread is that teams are employing too many top-down, one-size-fits-all solutions.