Twins opener overreaction

Ecstatic to have meaningful baseball back. Less enthused at being immediately reminded of how MLB has been so thoroughly overtaken by the pitch count Nazis.

Jake Odorizzi. 6 shutout innings, 93 pitches. Never even seriously threatened. But (adopts terrified voice) oh no he's close to 100 pitches! His arm is going to spontaneously combust if he goes over 100! Eek!

In all the years that pitch counts have become more important to teams than winning, there has never been a shred of evidence that 100 pitches makes someone more susceptible to injury than 110 or 120. They're just numbers, which all need context. It's all connected to the analytics zealots, the WAR mongers, but it drives me insane.

It's not to say that leaving Odorizzi in for another inning would have made the difference for the Twins today, but nothing makes a team flailing at the plate perk up more than seeing a pitcher who has been dominating them leave the game.

Twins will be fine. This was just a particular annoyance on a particular day. They maybe don't win anyway. The lineup was likely never going to push across a 3rd run. Not worried about that either. They won't have too many games where they look so collectively putrid. People already wanting to freak out over Buxton need a new hobby. The only reasonable concern is Sano, who probably is just going to be the one-dimensional masher going forward, not the second coming of Miguel Cabrera.

Bullpen was ehh. Duke was put in a bad spot by the supposed defensive wizard Jason Castro failing to block a 3rd strike. Hildenberger was garbage, but that tends to happen when you refuse to throw a strike. Rodney will be a season-long adventure.

1 of 162. Marathon not sprint. You know the drill.

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