06- Young Arms in Ruin

To me, the 2006 season will be memorable for the Yankees getting waxed in Detroit, and also for the situation of two of the bright young lights in the Game Liriano and Papelbon. Both of these guys were terrific-- no that's too mild-- these guys were dominant. They changed the games in which they appeared. Papelbon had the most dominant stretch of any pitcher in recent memory-- you've got to back to Bob Gibson to find a guy with and ERA under 1.00- for a long while it was under o.50-one run every 18 innings pitched. He had the most dominant season of any reliever ever until he got injured. Liriano was much the same only as a starter. He made the Twins the favorite in any game he pitched and he blew teams away. 7-8 innings 1-2 runs 4-5 hits-- 8-9 Ks-- typical Liriano fare-- until he got hurt late in the season.
Now- the key thing about both is how they pitched-- they had aggressive patterns--that was OK. They went after and challenged hitters and gave up few walks- again --ok. They pitched a lot of innings- kind of OK but needed by their teams. They each stood on the mound and stared down the hitters making a show of it --bad, very bad, and worse it led to their injuries. They both tried to blow away hitters constantly-- neither tried to learn to pitch so that they could fool hitters- they both tried to throw the ball throw a brick wall-- this was bad management of a precious baseball resource. Boston--you expect it they had Hansen, Delcarmen doing the same thing- Minnesota knew better and with Liriano's brief history they tried to limit his innings some-- but he still threw to many max effort pitches with a delivery that stressed his arm and shoulder like few have ever done. Same with Papelbon- a delivery that stressed the shoulder and a warm up routine that stressed the shoulder( big weighted arm/shoulder swings) . I hope both recover and benefit from the experience and stop making goofy faces at batters and just let the God given talent flow in a well managed scientific approach to pitching-- win without hurting your arm by throwing so hard so often.