the thunder clinch the eastern league northern division, justin pope is hurting, bill masse goes on a beautifully massian rant about pitch counts:

"Well, we are still debating that. We may let him go a couple of extra innings," said Masse be fore last night's 11-2 win over Erie in front of 2,026 at Jerry Uht Park. With Portland falling to Bingham ton, the Thunder's magic number to clinch the Eastern League Northern Division title outright is two.

On which side of the debate is Masse?

"We get so ridiculous with this dumb pitch count stuff," Masse said. "It's so (dumb). Somebody came up with a pitch count thing (like) this is going to decide if a kid's arm is going to be healthy or not. It's like predicting the weather sometimes. 'If he throws 66 pitches, he will be fine, but if he throws 81, he is going to get hurt.' No one can predict that.

"It's like a save. Someone arbitrarily came up with three runs, you get a save. Someone said, 'If he goes over 100 pitches, he's going to get hurt.' Who said that? Where did this come from? Where's the data?"

..."I understand completely what the Yankees are doing, and I support what they are doing," Masse said. "The only negative you run into is that he never learns how to pitch when he is tired. He never learns how to pitch when he is a little bit fatigued.

"I think you run into those problems because he is always fresh. Also, he is never in trouble. He needs to learn how to pitch out of his second or third jam in the seventh inning with two outs and he's throwing 90 mph instead of 94.

"Unfortunately what I think is going to happen with all these young pitchers is that they are going to learn how to do this in the big leagues since you are going to limit guys' innings and situations like this. When will they get that first big test? In the big leagues, because you held them back because of health is sues or for injury sake in the minors."

..."I understand with a guy like Hughes who just turned 20, but for older guys, I don't get it," Masse said. "Everybody is different. That's when baseball people need to come in. Is this guy a hard-working arm or is he an easy-working arm? Is he a big kid or is a small kid? Does he use his lower half?

"I think there are other factors that factor in this. What Phil has working for him is that he has an easy arm and he's a monster. He's 250 pounds. Those are two things, for me, that you look at that limit injuries."

[trenton times]

Labels: baby bombers, yanquis