Fans are reacting to the “156-pitch count” in a US college baseball game.
Stanford University pitcher Quinn Mathews, 23, threw 156 pitches over nine innings, allowing three runs on eight hits and 16 walks while striking out three in a complete-game victory over the University of Texas in Texas, U.S., on March 12. Stanford won the game 8-3.
According to local media in the United States, Mascherano is a senior in college and is expected to be selected in the fourth to sixth round of the 2023 Major League Baseball First-Year Player Draft next month. However, the “bullying” controversy surrounding his pitching has raised the possibility that he could slip back in the draft. That’s because of the injury risk. Mascherano was selected in the 19th round of last year’s MLB First-Year Player Draft, but he opted out because he didn’t like his ranking.
When the news of his 156 pitches in a game broke in the media and on social media, fans reacted with concern, with one saying, “Are you going to kill the pitcher? I hope his arm is okay,” and another criticizing the Stanford baseball coaching staff, saying they should have stopped at 100 pitches.
Another fan sarcastically wrote, “Tommy John surgeon (elbow ligament splicing surgery) has another client (Maschus)” and argued that “college starting pitchers should be managed between 80 and 100 pitches.
In recent years, pitch counts have been tightly controlled in baseball through position segmentation. According to baseball expert Keith Law, the last time a pitcher threw 156 pitches in a game in the major leagues was Tim Wakefield (Boston) in 1997. Since the 2010s, the most pitches thrown in a game has been 135, which Tim Lincecum (39, San Francisco) threw in a no-hitter in 2013.
Major League Baseball’s living legend Nolan Ryan’s (76) record of 235 pitches in a game is also not easily broken. In June 1974, Ryan started a game for the California Angels (now the Los Angeles Angels) against Boston and threw 235 pitches in 13 innings for a complete game victory.안전놀이터
Ryan later told the Los Angeles Times, “We didn’t have a term for quality starts back then. “If I had pitched six innings in the past and given up three runs, that would have been the wrong thing to do,” he said, “and the manager or general manager wouldn’t have liked it. In the games I pitched back then, I was supposed to be the closer,” he recalled.
Meanwhile, the most pitches thrown in a game in KBO history is 232 by Sun Dong-yeol (then Hae-tae). He set the record on May 16, 1987, when he started against Lotte’s Choi Dong-won at Sajik Stadium in Busan. The game ended in a 2-2 tie in the 15th inning after both pitchers pitched complete games. Choi also threw 209 pitches.