Phil Wood, The Examiner
2008-07-30 07:00:00.0
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WASHINGTON -

There’s a 3-word phrase that’s a standard part of virtually every pitching coaches’ verbal repertoire whenever he visits the mound: “Trust your stuff.”

It refers to the tendency of some pitchers to nibble at the corners a bit when they get ahead in the count. Or, it can be a situation where a pitcher has allowed a hit on a pitch he considers his best, and starts to avoid throwing it in key situations. It’s a line intended to show that the pitching coach and/or manager still has confidence in the pitcher’s ability to keep his team in the game.

The heavy reliance on pitch counts over the past several years has tended to make “trust your stuff” less of a pat-on-the-back and more “I’m-just-out-here-to-give-someone-more-time-to-warm-up.” Simply put, the pitch count trumps actual performance. With 100 pitches, plus or minus, seemingly the quota for most big league starting pitchers, rarely does a starter get an opportunity to go back out to the mound for a seventh, eighth or ninth inning, regardless of how effective he was the previous frame or two.

The Nats are pretty much in lockstep with baseball’s conventional wisdom regarding pitch counts. According to STATS, LLC, Washington is in the top five overall in baseball in terms of heaviest bullpen usage. At the top of the list are the Texas Rangers, who, through July 24, averaged 3.65 bullpen innings per game — roughly 3 and two-thirds innings. The Nationals, through the same date, averaged 3.36.

The obvious difference between the Rangers and the Nats is that Texas is winning more games than they’re losing, as are the Florida Marlins, who are also ahead of the Nats in bullpen innings. On the offensive side of the ledger lies the real answer: Florida has outscored Washington by more than 100 runs, and the Rangers have scored almost 200 more runs than the Nationals. I need not rehash the snakebitten nature of the Nationals’ roster that’s led to such a dismal lack of attack.

If you accept the premise that 2008 is a lost season — and let’s be upfront here: entering this hometand, Washington needs to win 25 of the season’s final 57 games to avoid 100 losses, an iffy scenario at best — wouldn’t you like to see the starters stretched out a bit? I’m not talking about high pitch count (120+) complete games, but it would be great to see a guy get through six innings with a pitch count in the low 90’s have the chance to go out in the seventh, or eighth. If they’ve gotten through the criteria for a “quality start” (allowing 3 or fewer runs through 6 innings), why not trust their stuff to get three more outs? Or six?

It’s a fact that many pitchers have the mindset that their day is over when they hit the century mark, pitch-wise. But I know there are pitchers on the Nats’ staff who are bulldog enough to throw more than that, who know their own physical limitations, and wouldn’t risk injury.

In these final two months of the season, wouldn’t you like to see if a slightly different approach might actually work?

Phil Wood is a contributor to Nats Xtra on MASN. Contact him at philwood@dcexaminer.com.