Agreed. But a young guy getting a shutout at Enron is something. Roy wanted out of the game though? I'm not sure how I should read that.
It's really hard to tell. Oswalt's AVERAGE pitch count isn't too high. IS it the "spikes" or the average that matters most? Nobody knows. All that is known is that there's a high correllation between pitch count and future injury for young pitchers. Hopefully someone will study the subject more in the future. The bottom line for me, is that it wasn't worth the risk. Roy had a shutout. That's great. But he also threw like 127 pitches. That's 27 more than he should have thrown, especially with the game a rout. Roy's a potential perennial Cy Young candidate. Why ruin him for a couple more innings?
