Adam Wainwright’s Last Few Starts: Aberration or Wearing Down? The Power of Inning Number 160.

So many headlines on ESPN or whatever other source you use to get your sports and more specifically Major League Baseball news have been centered on Stephen Strasburg and the Nationals decision to shut him down after 160 innings this season.  He will make only two more starts this season even though his team is all but a lock to play in the postseason this year.  I am not sure of what magic that the National’s training staff has found in this number of innings but could it be that they have some kind of a point?  Stephen Strasburg is currently sitting at just over 156 innings for the season, but as someone who watched every pitch that he threw against the Cardinals, I feel confident in saying that he still looks pretty good.  But when we look at Adam Wainwright, the last two starts he has made, the Cardinal’s ace has looked very hittable and possibly just a little worn down as well.

On August 21^st, Wainwright looked about as good as he has ever looked in a game as a Major League pitcher, throwing 9 innings and giving up only 5 hits with 12 strikeouts.  That game brought Adam Wainwright to 160.2 innings pitched on the season.  At that time we all thought that he was just hitting his stride.  We figured that those Nationals’ training staff must be out of their minds with that 160 inning total for a pitcher after Tommy John reconstructive surgery, or at least Adam Wainwright was immune to such issues.  Then came life after inning number 160. 

In his next start, Wainwright cruised through 5 innings against the Cincinnati Reds, and he looked solid once again.  But then, at the beginning of the 6^th inning which corresponded to Wainwright at 165.2 innings, he gave up 2 earned runs and was knocked out of the game after recording only 2 outs.  Again, this was easy to shrug off for someone watching as more fatigue after 90 pitches against a very good Reds lineup than anything resembling a wearing down at 160 innings.  Well, here we are, two starts into Adam Wainwright’s season after crossing the 165 inning threshold and in the last two starts, he has thrown only 7.2 innings (173.2 innings on the season) and in that time he has given up 17 hits, 11 earned, and 5 walks.  His ERA of 13.75 is more than a small warning sign that he is not himself only a three starts since throwing a shutout.

Before we completely go all conspiracy theory crazy here and treat the number 160 like Jim Carrey turned the number 23 into something evil in the move The Number 23, there could be just as much of an argument for a two game aberration for Wainwright.  There is just as good of a chance that Wainwright could bounce back in his next start and become the pitcher who he was becoming once again as he hit a stretch where the Cardinals won 5 of his starts in a row.  The Cardinals will without a doubt need the version of Adam Wainwright that can be dominant, and not the Wainwright who has been cursed by the number 160.

As ridiculous as this theory about inning caps and such seems for a pitcher like Strasburg or Wainwright because of their surgery, it is impossible to completely discredit it as being stupid based on the amount that the Washington Nationals are going to be giving up based on this theory.  While they have set these innings limits more to protect Strasburg’s valuable young arm than because they are worried about ineffectiveness, but these things can definitely be linked.  A tired arm is an ineffective arm, and that could very well be part of what we are seeing now with Wainwright.  I guess we can only hope that Carpenter is able to come back in hopes of riding the two one armed horses to see if they can somehow make it through the playoffs.