So About Those Pitch Counts…
A couple weeks ago I wrote an article on how The Norfolk’s coaching staff was limiting the starting pitchers’ pitch counts. That all changed on Sunday afternoon.
The starting pitcher for Norfolk on Sunday afternoon was Kevin Gausman and his start was unlike all of his previous starts this season. In his first seven starts, Gausman threw about 75 pitches per game. On Sunday, Gausman threw 93 pitches.
On Monday, Suk-min Yoon was the starting pitcher for Norfolk. In his first nine starts, Yoon threw around 75 pitches per start as well. Yoon threw 88 pitches Monday night.
Mike Wright started the first game of a double header Tuesday. Like both Gausman and Yoon, Wright was limited to about 70 or 75 pitches per game. And like Gausman and Yoon, Wright exceeded that pitch count in his latest start, throwing 93 pitches.
By now, you probably see one trend for Norfolk’s starting pitchers. But there is another trend that coincides with the pitch count trend, innings pitched.
As you can imagine, when starting pitchers are limited to a pitch count they will not be in the game very long. Just about all of Norfolk’s starting pitchers threw about three to four, sometimes five, innings per game due to their low pitch count. When the pitch count was increased, the pitches went longer into games.
Gausman, for example, pitched 6.1 innings on Sunday. Yoon pitched 7.0 innings and Wright pitched 5.2 innings. All three pitchers were taken out after they had lost their command of their pitches.
A common tendency I see with pitchers making the jump from Triple-A to the Major Leagues, not including a rare few, is the pitches can get ahead of batters but cannot finish them. I believe this is a direct correlation with pitch counts and pitching late into games.
Norfolk’s starting pitching staff, in my opinion, has loads of talent and with the increased pitch counts they will be able to work on being able to finish off batters at the Triple-A level. This will ultimately lead to the pitchers being able to finish off batters at the Major League level.
Obviously Kevin Gausman is the one pitcher everyone is keeping an eye on, and for good reason. Everyone who follows baseball in some form or another knows the potential Kevin Gausman has. Orioles’ fans in particular, want to see him starting for the Orioles by the end of this season and want him to be in the rotation at the start of next season.
Gausman, despite his win-loss record, has pitched very well this season for Norfolk. I believe once he gets enough starts under his belt that last longer than 5.0 innings, he will be good enough to possibly be in the Orioles starting rotation. If Gausman can continuously throw 85-90 pitches per game at Norfolk, he will be able to do the same for the Orioles.
The same goes for the other starting pitchers. If Mike Wright, Suk-min Yoon, Eddie Gamboa, and Steve Johnson are all able to throw a high number of pitches per game and are able to get batters out while doing it, they could help the Orioles’ bullpen, like T.J McFarland has already done.
But like all things in baseball, nothing is set in stone. Everything I just mentioned is all hypothetical. The pitchers need to pitch well every start and show the right people, Orioles’ manager Buck Showalter, they belong in the Major Leagues.
