Overused arms possible within state high-school rules

Within the current pitching rule for Washington high schools, a pitcher could be asked to do the following:

• Pitch three seven-inning complete games in one week with only two days' rest between starts.

• Throw three innings on one day and seven innings the next.

• Throw three innings on as many as six consecutive days. It stops there only because high schools don't play Sunday.

These scenarios are extreme. But with the playoffs approaching and teams hurrying to make up rained-out games, the potential to overwork pitchers exists.

"I've seen some pretty incredible workloads in playoff time on two days' rest that wouldn't happen in our program," said Sedro-Woolley coach Brad Conn, president of the Washington Baseball Coaches Association.

The Washington Interscholastic Activities Association rule states that anyone who pitches more than three innings must rest two calendar days.

But there is no limit for how long a pitcher can throw in one game. This spring, The Seattle Times heard of at least six occasions in which a pitcher threw more than 130 pitches — the most any major-league pitcher threw in 2007 — and as many as 158.

Any change to the WIAA's rule, though, is not on the horizon.

"It hasn't been proposed since I've been with the WIAA," said Andy Barnes, the association's baseball director.

The rule, many WIAA executives said, has been around as long as anyone can remember, without complaint. WIAA attorney John Olson, the former director of the association's sports medicine committee, said the issue of arm injuries "was never an issue that was brought to the state and national level for us to discuss."

Conn, who keeps pitch counts for his own pitchers, said he likes the idea of a pitch-count limit, but the consensus among coaches he has talked to is the rule would be an administrative nightmare.

"I think it would be hard to administer and would cause a lot of headaches," Conn said. "I think in an attempt to do something right, it would open a can of worms."

In 2007, when Little League adopted pitch-count limits, it heard similar groans from coaches who wondered how the league planned to keep track of pitches. But Jim Bittner, president of the Magnolia Little League, said it hasn't been a hassle.

"I haven't had any complaints on it," Bittner said.

Not all coaches think that a pitch-count rule would be a good idea. Some say a defined limit would hamper the best-conditioned pitchers from complete games. Others simply don't think high pitch counts are a problem. In the Koenig trial, Peninsula coach Marco Malich testified that he has no problem throwing a pitcher as many as 150 pitches.

"I've never kept a pitch count," Malich said, "and I probably won't."