MASN: Wood: High pitch counts, Marquis & Guardado

Don Drysdale, Early Wynn and Jason Marquis. (blows into envelope) “A late loss, an early win and, well…Jason Marquis” (laugh sign flashes)

Maybe you’ve seen it recently on the MLB Network: the last game of the 1983 ALCS between the Orioles and White Sox.

Britt Burns pitched for Chcago that day, and took it into the 10th inning when he allowed a home run to Tito Landrum. He was removed at that point for a reliever, but his pitch count was over 140.

And the game’s announcers - Don Drysdale and Early Wynn, both Hall of Fame righthanders - made no big deal out of it. That was due largely to the era in which they pitched, when pitchers routinely threw more pitches than they do today - and the rulebook strike zone seemed to actually matter - and the simple fact that a quarter-century ago a pitch count wasn’t nearly as important in the overall scheme of things.

I spoke with Nats’ GM Mike Rizzo about that telecast at yesterday’s Jason Marquis press conference, and he chalked it up to the game’s economics. “When we started paying these guys so much money, we tended to want to protect our investment,” he said. “It’s not that that we don’t think these guys could do it,” he continued. “If someone like a Jason Marquis were in a must-win, post-season-type game for us and was effective past the 100-pitch level, I think we’d let him stay in the game if he felt strongly about it.”

Inasmuch as Marquis only has six career complete games, I don’t think it’s likely we’ll see him in the tenth inning anytime soon, much less the ninth, but he does have good command of the strike zone, and averaged just a shade over 2 non-intentional walks per outing in 2009.