The Oklahoma City Dodgers were leading the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, 1-0, after six innings of their Pacific Coast League game on May 9. Dodgers pitcher Julio Urias was firmly in command, having scattered four hits and three walks in the thin Rocky Mountain air.
Urias has usually dominated in Triple A this year, but this game was special. Security Service Field in Colorado Springs sits at 6,531 feet above sea level, believed to be the highest elevation of any professional ballpark in the United States. In a place where earned-run averages go to die, Urias reached a new height _ literally and figuratively.
Once Urias was removed, the Sky Sox scored seven runs in the seventh inning to put the game out of reach. Oklahoma City lost, 7-3. For the Dodgers' Triple-A affiliate, this situation was hardly unique.
Five times this season Urias has been removed from a shutout with no more than six innings or 85 pitches on his ledger. The 19-year-old left-hander, ever the good soldier, never complains about his workload restriction. He is currently parked in the Oklahoma City bullpen as the Dodgers hope to preserve his remaining innings for later in the season. (He's up to 781/3.)
Urias' usage might be the most prominent example of an evolving trend, one with broad implications _ not just for the Dodgers' top prospect but his teammates, other minor league prospects, and even the future of major league pitching staffs.
Fellow pitcher Jharel Cotton has spent the entire 2016 season on the Oklahoma City roster. Speaking at the Futures Game last weekend in San Diego, he said watching Urias pitch "is a fun sight to see." Sometimes that makes Urias' innings limit difficult to accept.
Cotton was asked if he ever wonders whether the Dodgers are trying to win when Urias is yanked in the middle of a shutout. He paused.
"I'm so used to hearing that he's a young guy, 19 years old in Triple A, I guess I'm stuck on that," Cotton said. "The kid's going to be around for a long time. I think it's going to be a big, long career as a big leaguer. I guess they're trying to protect him. I don't know."
It isn't just Urias. The Dodgers use some variation on an innings or pitches limit at every level of the organization.
Ross Stripling didn't allow a hit for 71/3 innings in his major league debut in April. He was removed after throwing his 100th pitch. Stripling, in his first full season back from Tommy John surgery, went to extended spring training in May to preserve his innings.
Jose De Leon, a 23-year-old pitcher with Oklahoma City, spent the first month of the season in extended spring training. One hundred pitches seems to be the ceiling at Double-A Tulsa; no one has cracked it in a game this season. At advanced Class-A Rancho Cucamonga, 22-year-old pitching prospect Josh Sborz is limited to four innings per start for the remainder of the season. The low Class-A Great Lakes Loons recently used four pitchers in a game, none of whom threw less than two or more than three innings.
Willie Calhoun, a second baseman at Double-A Tulsa, acknowledged he's had some are-we-even-trying-to-win-the-game thoughts too.
"A little bit," he said, "but I try to let (Manager Ryan) Garko take care of that. I trust him _ which is good."
Around baseball, the mandate to protect young pitchers' arms didn't happen overnight.
Four years ago, Washington Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg was 23 years old and pitching his first full season following Tommy John surgery. Though healthy, Strasburg never appeared in a game after Sept. 7, having pitched 1591/3 innings to that point in the season.
That was a particularly tough pill to swallow for the 2012 Nationals, who ultimately lost a five-game National League Division Series to the St. Louis Cardinals with Strasburg on the bench. Speaking at the All-Star Game in San Diego this week, Strasburg admits it "took a few years" for him to make peace with the decision.
"At the time, I was pretty frustrated," he said. "Looking back on it now, with the direction the organization's going, how it's built for the long haul, I think it's kind of a tough call _ strike when the iron's hot or potentially deal with the consequences of it?"
Ideally, limiting the workloads of Stripling, Urias, De Leon and others now will avoid a Strasburg-like scenario later. Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said there is no "blanket rule" for usage that applies to every pitcher in the organization, but the result is the same: Stripling, Urias and De Leon might be available to pitch for the Dodgers in September and October if needed.
On the other end of the spectrum are those who deride lighter workloads as harmful and overprotective. In a March interview, Hall of Famer pitcher Goose Gossage said pitch-count limits have led directly to injuries.
"The first thing a pitcher does when he comes off the mound is ask: 'How many pitches do I have?' If I had asked that (expletive) question, they would have said: 'Son, get your (butt) out there on that mound. If you get tired, we'll come and get you,' " Gossage told ESPN.
This philosophy has fallen out of favor. In Gossage's last full season, 1993, eight pitchers threw 250 innings or more. In the last 10 seasons combined, only three pitchers have reached the 250-inning mark: Justin Verlander (2011), Roy Halladay (2010) and C.C. Sabathia (2008).
Friedman believes the egg came before the chicken _ that is, the injuries led to innings limits, not the other way around.
"A lot of the pitch counts and innings limits were born out of the increase in arm injuries," he said. "We understood and appreciated all that we don't know. Teams tend to err on the side of caution."
Even so, Friedman insists he doesn't intend to shatter the classic model of the "staff workhorse."
"You can definitely build guys up in a methodical way to put 200 to 250 innings on their body," he said.
What will that method look like? The answer is playing out across the minor leagues right now.
An underrated obstacle to this process _ and a major flaw in Gossage's theory _ is that pitchers who throw more innings at a younger age can thwart any team's best efforts. By the time a pitcher is drafted (typically between the ages of 17 and 22), there's no telling how many innings he's thrown, or whether his body was strong enough to withstand the workload. A pitcher can be run into the ground before a major league organization prescribes its innings limit.
Urias is special in this regard, too. The Dodgers have been able to control his workload since his age-16 season _ that's how young Urias was when he threw his first pitch for Great Lakes. He threw 54 1/3, 872/3 and 801/3 innings his first three professional seasons, not including spring training games.
Recently, the National Federation of State High School Associations told members to adopt a rule regulating the number of pitches (as opposed to innings) a high school player can throw in a game. Perhaps the rules regarding pitcher workload will trickle up, too.
Scott Boras, Urias' agent, has an idea of what that might look like.
"I think we're going to have to develop in this business a way to have a pitcher on the roster who can throw 120 innings his first year, 150 the next year, and then get him up to where he can throw 180," Boras said. "To do that we need a 26th man. Someone has to cover those innings. I think we're going to find that it's economically advisable _ and great for the development of the young players _ to have great talent in the big leagues at a young age but understand you can only use it within limits."
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