That’s because no study has ever found a correlation between innings pitched/pitches per game and injury. Call me cynical, but I think limiting pitchers to the modern-day work load is more an idea concocted by agents/self-serving pitchers who can stretch out careers and garner fatter, bigger, and longer contracts by pampering their arms and limiting the work load. In other words, it’s just a numbers game.

Hence the five-man rotation and limiting pitches per game. I’m not saying that trotting every pitcher out there 300 innings a year, or 150 – 170 pitches a game is necessarily a good game plan — but I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to do so in certain situations, either, if the pitcher was conditioned to do so. In my view, it’s more a matter of increasing the odds of injury rather than causing injury.

So you start with Leyland, then Sheffy and Renteria must be gone for ‘09.

This is just the tip of the iceberg but it’s a good starting point if the Tigers are gonna try to regroup for next year.

There is no way any pitcher in MLB should have been able to shut out this lineup even once. Beat them, sure. Shut them out, no. That is a disgrace. If I wasn’t a general subscriber to the Lemonade Philosophy, the fact that the Tigers could both put up 57 runs in 3 games and also go 11 without scoring even 1 would drive me nuts. If I remember nothing else about 2008, I’ll remember this.

You can’t even pin it on the loss to injury or the underachievement of one or two guys. General team hittting failure. Even the guys putting up good to very good numbers have a share in that failure. They just haven’t gotten it together nearly often enough.

I’m not excusing the pitching, the defense, or the bullpen. But it’s the inconsistent hitting that has bugged me the most all season.

Coleman – Very nice.

http://www.detnews.com/apps/pb.....70368/1004

Thanks for all you do.

Dave