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1. maninblack said:

   May 31st, 2009 at 10:12 am

   If Augie had employed the Wesley Snipes strategy and left Keyes in the game I think this would have ended much sooner.

   Always bet on black, Augie.

2. Johnny Bench said:

   May 31st, 2009 at 11:14 am

   How about some love for the kid that caught 307 pitches? Hell, I might have struck out that many times.

3. Nik said:

   May 31st, 2009 at 1:11 pm

   Yes, it was an incredible pitching performance. Best I have ever seen for certain but I still don’t understand why you take out a hitter who homers and then doubles off of a guy who is mowing everyone else down. Augie owes a huge apology to Keyes.

4. HenryJames said:

   May 31st, 2009 at 1:44 pm

   I didn’t like the substitution either, but the starter had already been pulled when Keyes came up in the 8th.

5. CrazyJoeDavola66 said:

   May 31st, 2009 at 5:33 pm

   Meanwhile, tonight…

   Fucking Augieball.

6. The General said:

   May 31st, 2009 at 6:08 pm

   Rupp caught all 25 innings? That is beyond insane. that is criminally negligent. I have no problem with wood throwing 169 pitches, but i will have nightmares about having to catch 25 innings in Texas in the summer.

7. intellectual type said:

   May 31st, 2009 at 6:10 pm

   I’m glad we’re making Army look this good. Back to back home runs from a military school…impressive.

8. jinx said:

   May 31st, 2009 at 6:29 pm

   I had high hopes coming into this tournament. Now I’m thinking it is just another regional that we don’t make it out of. Our lacking of hitting is pathetic.

9. Scipio Tex said:

   May 31st, 2009 at 6:41 pm

   Tie ballgame at 10 after we actually allow our players to bat.

   Amazing what an offense can do when they don’t concede outs.

10. chitwood said:

    May 31st, 2009 at 6:52 pm

    not a bad finish.

11. intellectual type said:

    May 31st, 2009 at 6:54 pm

    I take it all back…

12. Texoz said:

    May 31st, 2009 at 6:57 pm

    Speechless.

13. Huckleberry said:

    May 31st, 2009 at 6:59 pm

    Yep, our offense woke up when the situations were so obvious that not even Augie would call for a bunt.

14. Huckleberry said:

    May 31st, 2009 at 7:02 pm

    Hahaha. Augie just said post-game that tomorrow would have been a tough game for us because “we would have probably had to overuse some pitcher that we didn’t want to.”

    Funny.

15. CloseToJumping said:

    June 1st, 2009 at 3:50 pm

    Ridiculously enough, I once threw 160 pitches in a non-extra innings game. I was 16 and it was Colt baseball. I was not a pitcher but could throw pretty hard and it was the regular season, where pitching experience didn’t really matter because it was so scarce. Our coach asked me to pitch. Of course, I was absolutely certain that it was my destiny to pitch this game and then be noticed by a random scout jogging by on the neighborhood track. Or a hot female jogger.

    The game went 6 innings. I walked 17 batters and struck out 15. I hit several guys, and one of their fathers literally petitioned to have me banned from the mound after the game. The bases were loaded in every inning and we lost 4-3. Almost every at bat was a full count. They got a couple of hits, but they won on a passed ball (perhaps a wild pitch, although I hold the catcher accountable) in the bottom of the 6th to win the game. We were the last place team and they were the first place team, so I guess it was our coach’s shot for glory or some absurdity.

    I thought the whole affair was fun. There were, of course, some asshole friends of mine in the stands watching the game before they played their own. They started doing a count not unlike a K count for each walk I did by the 4th. They were laughing heartily after each walk, and I was finding myself amused as well, although I desperately wanted to win that meaningless game. The whole spectacle drew a bit of a crowd in the baseball complex in which the game was played.

    My coach asked me to pitch about 4 days later. I could hardly move my arm the day after the previous game, but now it was feeling somewhat normal. I couldn’t break glass with my fastball and pulled myself after 4 hitters in the 1st and went to where I normally played in CF. I remember crying quietly in pain as that inning went on. I have never known a pain like what I continued to experience in my shoulder throughout that spring and summer, just warming up and playing in Centerfield, usually. For the 1st and last time in my life, I was praying not to have balls come near me on the field.

    I never pitched again and my shoulder never recovered. Even playing baseball as an adult, over a decade later, my shoulder would develop excruciating, dull, prolonged pain for days after each men’s league hardball game. There’s obviously something wrecked inside there, but it’s worth getting it looked at.

    Anyway, I hope things go better for our guy. He’s got more practice going for him, which is nice. His game obviously has meaning beyond simple, basic personal comedy, which is also nice. I am also glad we won. That typed, every time I hear a story like Wood’s, I can honestly start to feel the dull ache in my shoulder. I hope his sacrifice is long remembered.

16. TaylorTRoom said:

    June 1st, 2009 at 5:13 pm

    Back in the ’80s, Bill James had a Baseball Abstract article about pitch counts. He found a lot of archive material where the old time guys admitted that they didn’t throw their hardest every pitch. they knew they had to pitch nine innings every fourth day (the fourth man in the rotation lost a start when there was an off day) in those days before relief specialists, so they had to “save their stuff for when it counted”.

    I seem to recall that the Dodgers invented the five man rotation (early ’60s?)and dominated the pitching stats for a few decades until everybody else followed suit. I think the Orioles, back in the ’60s, started putting young pitchers on pitch counts.

    Basically, there is a ton of evidence that the best thing you can do for an arm is limit its use.

17. BatesHorn said:

    June 2nd, 2009 at 3:57 am

    Baseball prospectus has done quite a bit of work on pitch counts that suggests two trends, one short and one long:

    1. In an in game analysis, pitchers effectiveness tends to drop after 100 pitches and really begins to plummet after 115 pitches. The statistical correlation is direct and undeniable. In a sense, what Wood did was buck a very clear trend of ineffectuality as his pitchcount climbed.

    2. Over the long term, it’s not just a high pitch count that does the damage, but each pitch is increasingly damaging to the arm. So the 150 pitch places much more stress on the arm then the 130th did relative to the 115th, etc.

    To follow up on Taylor’s comment, pitching was also a radically different game in an era before personalized workout regimes (weaker hitters), no minorities (smaller and shallower talent pool), and the larger strike zone (easier task to perform). That meant you didn’t need to bring high gas or filthy stuff on every pitch.

18. The General said:

    June 2nd, 2009 at 4:04 am

    1. In an in game analysis, pitchers effectiveness tends to drop after 100 pitches and really begins to plummet after 115 pitches. The statistical correlation is direct and undeniable. In a sense, what Wood did was buck a very clear trend of ineffectuality as his pitchcount climbed.

    Isn’t this a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy?

19. Bob in Houston said:

    June 2nd, 2009 at 5:01 am

    To follow up on what Bates and Taylor said, I believe that there are several factors contributing to lower pitch counts (on the MLB level)…

    Bigger, stronger hitters
    Smaller parks
    Smaller strike zone

    As previously noted, this means that every pitch counts, and because every pitch counts, pitchers would be advised to get movement of some sort on every one. That’s hard to do, and it strains the arm.

20. Huckleberry said:

    June 2nd, 2009 at 5:06 am

    Isn’t this a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy?

    How so? It would seem to be the opposite as a pitcher that is left in for more pitches will almost always be the pitcher that was more effective for the previous pitches.

21. Kafka said:

    June 2nd, 2009 at 6:15 am

    CTJ:
    Great recollection, really interesting. It reminds us that young athletes are willing to run through a stone wall for the team and that coaches have an obligation to protect those young guys from themselves. Unfortunately, a lot of coaches don’t meet that obligation well enough.

22. BrickHorn said:

    June 2nd, 2009 at 7:19 am

    For the 1st and last time in my life, I was praying not to have balls come near me

    Not that there’s anything wrong with that…

23. BatesHorn said:

    June 2nd, 2009 at 8:51 am

    That’s the trick isn’t it? The manager is working on past results=future success, while the Stat guy will tell you you’re fighting a losing battle against compounding odds.

24. CloseToJumping said:

    June 2nd, 2009 at 2:47 pm

    I knew one of you jokers could try something like that, brick. Nice edit.

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