Statewide pitch-count rules failed Faith Christian
By PATRICK MASON
Sports Writer ROCKY MOUNT ACADEMY
Saturday, May 20, 2017
HIGH POINT — I left the NCISAA 2-A state baseball championship series with one question on my mind.
How could this happen?
And I wasn’t questioning Faith Christian’s two-game sweep of Charlotte Northside Christian that gave the Patriots their first state championship. Instead, I wondered how a system with good intentions could fail so miserably.
If you followed the Patriots’ run to the championship over the weekend, you would know that they enjoyed incredible pitching performances over 14 innings. How they won this series without Division-I pitching recruit Landen Roupp doesn’t have to be debated. Instead, what has to be looked at is why they had to win this without his talented right arm.
It’s a problem both the NCHSAA and NCISAA are going to have to fix.
The National Federation of State High School Associations mandated that state associations set pitch-count rules in 2017, marking the first season in which national pitch-counts rules went live.
Both North Carolina high school associations agreed that if a pitcher throws 76 or more pitches during an outing, he must need four calendar days of rest before he can throw again.
OK, fine.
I’m on board with this.
The decision to protect young arms is the correct one. No one needs to see a teenager throw 100-plus pitches three, four times a week.
But what wasn’t factored into the decision was the state championship series, a potential three-game series, with at least 21 different innings that needs arms to pitch. This series was an afterthought.
The state’s solution? They made separate rules to give pitchers at an allotment of 120 pitches over the two days. Throw 118 on Friday like Northside’s Alec Huffstickler? You get 2 more on Saturday. Throw 94 on Friday? You get 26 more on Saturday.
Let’s talk about throwing 94 pitches.
That’s how many pitches Roupp threw on Tuesday in a semifinal win to reach the state series. That was way back at the start of the same week when everyone was playing under some old rules that would be thrown out days later. Because Roupp threw more than 76 pitches, he’s out for four days.
What’s maddening is that if he threw those same 94 pitches in a start on Friday, he would be eligible to pitch the next day. Maybe the Patriots would need a reliable arm in a late inning to close out a game, just as they did on Saturday when the Knights stormed back for a pair of runs.
Roupp’s arm was likely more fresh and rested on the fourth day than anyone who threw this weekend, yet he couldn’t take the mound.
Pitching back-to-back days with a heavy pitch count on an arm is potentially dangerous, and is why the rule was put in place initially. So why throw all of that logic away? Because these games carry bigger consequence, it’s now OK to bend some of these rules?
The intention of the rule was to make sure that these kids aren’t overworked no matter the importance of the game. There has to be solutions. Scheduling the semifinal game on a Monday instead of Tuesday would have eliminated any four-day rest issue. That way, the winning teams would have all of their pitching available.
The Patriots proved to have enough depth without their ace, but they shouldn’t have to dig that deep in the first place. Pick a lane. Either make everyone available or stick to the regular-season rules.
“That we won this without Landen on the mound,” FCS coach Greg Clifton said, “well, it’s something else.”
The high school associations need to think of something else, too.
By PATRICK MASON
Sports Writer ROCKY MOUNT ACADEMY
Saturday, May 20, 2017
HIGH POINT — I left the NCISAA 2-A state baseball championship series with one question on my mind.
How could this happen?
And I wasn’t questioning Faith Christian’s two-game sweep of Charlotte Northside Christian that gave the Patriots their first state championship. Instead, I wondered how a system with good intentions could fail so miserably.
If you followed the Patriots’ run to the championship over the weekend, you would know that they enjoyed incredible pitching performances over 14 innings. How they won this series without Division-I pitching recruit Landen Roupp doesn’t have to be debated. Instead, what has to be looked at is why they had to win this without his talented right arm.
It’s a problem both the NCHSAA and NCISAA are going to have to fix.
The National Federation of State High School Associations mandated that state associations set pitch-count rules in 2017, marking the first season in which national pitch-counts rules went live.
Both North Carolina high school associations agreed that if a pitcher throws 76 or more pitches during an outing, he must need four calendar days of rest before he can throw again.
OK, fine.
I’m on board with this.
The decision to protect young arms is the correct one. No one needs to see a teenager throw 100-plus pitches three, four times a week.
But what wasn’t factored into the decision was the state championship series, a potential three-game series, with at least 21 different innings that needs arms to pitch. This series was an afterthought.
The state’s solution? They made separate rules to give pitchers at an allotment of 120 pitches over the two days. Throw 118 on Friday like Northside’s Alec Huffstickler? You get 2 more on Saturday. Throw 94 on Friday? You get 26 more on Saturday.
Let’s talk about throwing 94 pitches.
That’s how many pitches Roupp threw on Tuesday in a semifinal win to reach the state series. That was way back at the start of the same week when everyone was playing under some old rules that would be thrown out days later. Because Roupp threw more than 76 pitches, he’s out for four days.
What’s maddening is that if he threw those same 94 pitches in a start on Friday, he would be eligible to pitch the next day. Maybe the Patriots would need a reliable arm in a late inning to close out a game, just as they did on Saturday when the Knights stormed back for a pair of runs.
Roupp’s arm was likely more fresh and rested on the fourth day than anyone who threw this weekend, yet he couldn’t take the mound.
Pitching back-to-back days with a heavy pitch count on an arm is potentially dangerous, and is why the rule was put in place initially. So why throw all of that logic away? Because these games carry bigger consequence, it’s now OK to bend some of these rules?
The intention of the rule was to make sure that these kids aren’t overworked no matter the importance of the game. There has to be solutions. Scheduling the semifinal game on a Monday instead of Tuesday would have eliminated any four-day rest issue. That way, the winning teams would have all of their pitching available.
The Patriots proved to have enough depth without their ace, but they shouldn’t have to dig that deep in the first place. Pick a lane. Either make everyone available or stick to the regular-season rules.
“That we won this without Landen on the mound,” FCS coach Greg Clifton said, “well, it’s something else.”
The high school associations need to think of something else, too.
