Friday, September 05, 2008

Pitching staff arms

While everyone in the world is claiming that we're going to pitch CC Sabathia into the ground, the Brewers have been quietly doing their damnedest to amputate another pitcher: Manny Parra.

Got the link from Brew Crew Ball that led me to the FanHouse posting about this:

Last year, Manny Parra threw in 133 innings. This year, he's already up to 156 2/3 with a month left in the season. That's already a pretty significant jump in innings for a 25-year-old that's never thrown more than 139 in any minor league season, especially with the playoffs looming. With their fairly solid lead in the wild card, it would seem appropriate to start limiting his innings at this time of year, right? Ah, wrong. Ned Yost has something else in mind:

"We haven't discussed it," Yost said. "It hasn't been a problem; hasn't become an issue."

[...]

Since going 5-0 with a 2.59 earned run average in June, Parra has slipped in effectiveness. He was 1-2 with a 3.90 ERA in July and 1-2 with a 4.25 ERA in August.

Skyrocketing innings count, drop in effectiveness, and no plan for a mildly insane manager to limit his innings. Doug Melvin might as well get James Andrews on the horn and schedule Parra for a date in Birmingham in November. I know that the Brewers are in a playoff race and they need to limit Ben Sheets' innings as well, but ramping Parra's innings up this month without giving him time off is playing with fire.
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Of course, Ned doesn't think that's why Manny's struggling.

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