130 PC Night Moves Big Z to 2nd in PAP

[Soul]

This is also a main reason why I'm not too worried about this. Here's Lou on why Dempster left early today (courtesy of Cubs.com):

 

The converted closer, who had thrown 117, 109, 115 and 118 pitches in his past four starts, threw 93 pitches on Saturday.

 

"He was actually getting a little better as the game progressed," Piniella said. "But we wanted to really shorten him today to 85 or 90 pitches. The last couple games he's pitched, he's gone through seven innings throwing a lot of pitches. We want to make sure that we got his pitch count down, this start in particular and hopefully one more."

 

I don't remember Dusty ever saying something like this. As far as I'm concerned, this proves Lou is much more conscious of the health of his starters' arms. He might stretch the pitch count of a guy for awhile, but if he follows this stated philosophy, he'll make up for it later.

[Brett]

Z has always been able to handle large pitch counts.

He has not gotten hurt but he was getting much less effective

 

Definitely. Z might be a horse, but any time he goes over 110 pitches, it still makes me very nervous.