Second Guessing Scioscia – No accounting for pitch counts

Welcome to Second Guessing Scioscia, our look back at some of the questionable decisions that Mike Scioscia made in the last week. And, boy, there are some questionable decisions to be reviewed. In the history of this column, we have never once struggled for content. However, we aren’t anti-Scioscia. The official MWAH stance on Scioscia is pro-Scioscia overall. But his in-game tactics need some help and we are here to provide that help by nitpicking incessantly and grading them with our patented SciosciaFace grading system.

In this week’s edition of Second Guessing Scioscia we attempt to understand the manner in which Scioscia manages pitch counts on his starting pitchers, if such an understanding is even possible.

So is there a pitch count philosophy in Anaheim?
It has been a weird week for the Angels and the pitch counts of their starters. While it is probably just an aberration, it does make me wonder if the Angels have any established policy on how many pitches their guys should throw. Let’s take a look:

• July 17th: C.J. Wilson throws 111 pitches in eight shutout innings. This is unremarkable for most pitchers, but early in 2014, Wilson was throwing 110+ pitches on a regular basis. In fact, he did so in 10 of his first 11 starts of 2014. Since then, C.J. has thrown 110 or more pitches just eight times in the 40(!) starts following that stretch. That tells me that at some point a decision was made to back off C.J.’s workload.
• July 18th: Garrett Richards throws 113 pitches in a complete game shutout. Again, unremarkable on its own. The game was close, but not too close, so letting Richards go the distance was a risk worth taking but also not venturing into the realm of letting him pitch longer than he needed to out of some misplaced sense of machismo. It was, however, only the third time in his previous ten starts that he’d thrown over 100 pitches. Scioscia had been babying him up to this point, but seemingly gave him a bit of leeway so he could get that CGSO.
• July 20th: In the first game of the doubleheader, Hector Santiago needed 114 pitches to get through five innings. It was a very inefficient outing from Hector, but the Angels needed him to get as many outs as possible. This is a doubleheader we are talking about, so having a starter go deeper mitigates the potentially heavy strain on the bullpen. This is a special circumstance, so I don’t think there is any real takeaway here.
• July 20th: In the second game of the doubleheader, Andrew Heaney went seven innings but needed just 96 pitches to do it. The bullpen had been preserved at this point, so turning it over to the relievers was perfectly fine at this point. The issue really looks to be that the Angels are actively trying to keep Heaney’s pitch count down. Not only has he thrown under 100 pitches in each of his Angels starts, but he only three times threw over 100 pitches in his 14 Triple-A starts, maxing out at 106 pitches. Clearly this is part of the organizational philosophy for handling Heaney, which is a bit surprising just because I can’t recall them treating a pitcher with kid gloves like this before. Then again, I can’t recall them having a young arm worth protecting so dearly in recent years.
• July 21st: Matt Shoemaker throws 88 pitches in six shutout innings. Now this is where things start getting weird. Shoemaker had been dominating through six innings with 10 strikeouts and just two hits. Clearly his pitch count was more than reasonable. Six innings is few enough innings that you can’t even make the case that Scioscia just didn’t want him getting up and down for another inning. He allowed two baserunners in his final inning, but he also fanned three, so it wasn’t as if he was slipping. He was also about to face the bottom half of the lineup, so it wasn’t times-through-the-order penalty concerns. My initial reaction was that maybe Scioscia pulled Shoe so that he could leave on a high note as he has been having an up-and-down season. He’d been pitching better of late, but this was far and away his best outing in weeks, so maybe Scioscia made him quit while he’s ahead. However, if we look further back, we see that Shoemaker has only broken the 100 pitch mark twice, and just barely, this season. He went over five times last season, so he isn’t exactly a workhorse. Still, it certainly appears that he is being limited by the coaching staff (and his generally poor performance). Compared to Heaney, that’s pretty interesting since Shoemaker isn’t exactly a young arm in need of coddling.
• July 22nd: C.J. Wilson throws 105 pitches in five innings. This one just annoyed me. Wilson was struggling in this game with two on and one out in the fifth with two good righties due up. Scioscia neglected to replace Wilson though. This seemed to be a classic case of letting the starter finish five innings so that he can get the win. It ended up working out for Wilson, but seeing Scioscia push for more pitches and innings for such a stupid reason is frustrating.
• July 23rd: Garrett Richards throws 102 pitches in eight innings. The Angels were down three runs, so there was no sense in giving G-Rich another inning even though he probably could handle it. The bullpen was also pretty rested, so there was no harm in getting someone work. Here Scioscia set the machismo aside and pulled Richards rather than letting him go for a second straight complete game.

I didn’t expect to find this, but it really does look like somewhere in the last year the Angels have made a concerted effort to reduce the pitch counts for the starting pitchers. Hector Santiago is the only starter with a real increase in pitches per start and that is more an effect of him being very good this year and very bad last year. He isn’t mentioned here, but even Jered Weaver has seen his average pitch count drop for the second straight season. Everyone is throwing less.

There are other variables in play here like Richards’ injury, Weaver’s decline, Shoemaker’s struggles and actually having a non-crappy bullpen. Even with all that, Scioscia has generally avoided pushing his pitchers. Whether that directive came from above or is something he and his coaching staff decided on, this is a real positive step forward for the Angels.

VERDICT: