An interesting article, ‘Kershaw needs to avoid fatigue factor’ appeared in the LA Times on September 9, 2015. It was the author’s opinion that Kershaw needs more rest, especially when pitching on a day when the temperature is high. This appears to be a common recommendation for professional pitchers regardless of the temperature.
But, is this a sound recommendation? Keep in mind that pitchers typically pitch 6-7 innings every 5-6 days. This regularity is maintained regardless of how many innings he pitched during the last outing. This is a marked difference from what pitchers did 20-30 years ago.
At that time pitchers usually pitched a full game every 3-4 days. And they did not come down with injuries. Those days though cannot be resurrected. It appears that most of today’s pitchers do not have the muscular endurance and stamina needed to pitch a full game. It can be said that they are under-trained.
Thus rather than limiting the amount of pitching that they do, would it not be more advantageous to have them undergo more training aimed at improving their ability to pitch longer while still maintaining their effectiveness? We do this in almost all of the sports.
For example, if a cross-country runner experienced early fatigue he would do more training to counteract this negative effect. In general, the athlete would train more rather than less to remedy the situation. The only time less training is indicated is when the athlete is over-trained or on the verge of being over-trained.
The original recommendation to do less in relation to pitcher fatigue ,comes from Dr. Andrews based on his experiences with young or youth pitchers. They do not have the physical and physiological ability to pitch more. Adult or major league pitchers however, do have the ability.
The problem appears to lie in the ability of the teams to adequately train the pitchers to be able to pitch more without injury. They do not have staff members who are capable of analyzing technique and then prescribing specialized strength exercises that duplicate the pitcher’s technique. These are the two main factors responsible for not only effective pitching, but prevention of injury.
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