What pitch count? Washington pitcher Danielle Lawrie ready to go again

Why is it that baseball pitchers are placed on pitch counts while windmilling softball pitchers, like Washington ace Danielle Lawrie, just keep going and going and going and going?

If some major-league pitchers struggle to last five innings on four days' rest, why can Lawrie pitch back-to-back complete games (as she did last Friday and Saturday) and follow that with two more games on Sunday — with the second game lasting a nail-biting 15 innings, upping Lawrie's one-day pitch total to a staggering 395 throws?

"It's a natural motion," explained Lawrie in Atlanta, where the third-seeded Huskies will face 14th-seeded Georgia Tech at 9 a.m. PDT Saturday in the opener of a best-of-three NCAA tournament super-regional series — principally because of the endurance and grit Lawrie displayed Sunday.

The Huskies (44-11) and Georgia Tech (46-13) will play again at 10 a.m. PDT on Sunday. If Game 3 is necessary, it would follow at 12:30 p.m. Sunday.

"It hurts when I throw overhead," Lawrie said. "That's why I respect baseball pitchers so much, with all the maintenance you have to do on your arm. It's difficult to come over the top."

Fastpitch hurlers like Lawrie instead use a full-circle, high-velocity underarm delivery to give their pitches (in Lawrie's case, a rise ball, curve, changeup and screwball) a bewildering mix of sizzle and snap. A quality rise, softball's heater, routinely hits the low 60s over the short distance (43 feet) it travels to the plate.

And softball pitchers can fling their best stuff over and over, day after day. For a tournament team like Washington, which lost a talented No. 2 arm last September when sophomore Aleah Macon quit the team, such durability is pure gold, because dominant pitching is a team's most precious postseason asset.

So how can softball pitchers keep it up?

Christopher Wahl, assistant professor of orthopedics and sports medicine at the UW School of Medicine, is team physician for UW football, men's basketball, softball, gymnastics and women's soccer.

"The arm, by the way we walk and carry things, is accustomed to being moved in an underhand position," Wahl said. "Stresses generated in the shoulder during a softball pitch occur when the arm is in that more natural, anatomical position.

"Overhand throwing puts strain everywhere on the body — initially on the shoulder, followed by huge forces across the elbow and right on through the kinetic chain into the back, hips and legs. Everything is affected because of the throwing motion."

Yet even with physical forces working in her favor, Lawrie (35-7, 0.86 earned-run average, fourth-best in the nation) leaned more on mental toughness to prevail in Sunday's epic 15-inning, 6-1 victory against another top-drawer pitcher, Brandice Balschmiter (34-6, 0.96) of Massachusetts.

Lawrie struck out 24 (a UW record, four shy of tying the NCAA record) and kept the Huskies in the 1-1 game while her teammates searched for a way to solve Balschmiter.

"It was emotionally draining," Lawrie said. "There were some tears coming out in the dugout in the 13th inning. I said, 'C'mon, guys, let's push one across and I'll close this out.' "

She gave up only seven hits and struck out the final UMass hitter.

"That's what sports are about, passion," said Lawrie, who finally went to bed at 4:30 a.m. Monday. "I didn't know we were capable of some things until we did them a couple of nights ago."

So does Lawrie have anything left in the tank, physically or emotionally?

"I'm ready to go," she said firmly earlier this week. "I'm ready to go tomorrow."