No No-No

BY KEVIN KERNAN

Nolan Ryan can rest easy. He owns a major league record that will never be broken.

Thanks to the risk adverse No No-No Nerds.

Ryan threw seven no-hitters during his career.

No major league pitcher, even if he has the ageless talent of the Ryan Express, will ever come close to that mark again. Geez, seven complete games in a season for a team is a treat these days. There have only been 16 complete games thrown all season in the majors.

The difficulty of over-coming your own front office and manager was shown on Thursday when the Pirates pulled rookie wonder kid Paul Skenes after seven innings with a no-hitter. Skenes had just completed a six-pitch seventh inning and was sitting at 99 stress-free pitches. The Brewers had not even hit a ball hard against Skenes who was gliding along.

In the sixth inning, Skenes struggled a bit, he had to throw seven pitches.

The right-hander was rolling, the Brewers had no shot. They were ripe to be no-hit and lose 1-0, sending Skenes into the All-Star break at the top of the pitching world with plenty of time to rest before his next Pirates start, a start that could have been pushed back a bit for more rest if the pitch total was a bit high.

In between, Skenes would have only a first inning to pitch in the All-Star Game for the National League.

Who knows? Skenes might have had another six-pitch inning in the eighth and ninth, which would have given him 111 pitches.

Instead, he was taken out after the seventh and reliever Colin Holderman promptly gave up a couple of hits, but the Pirates escaped with the 1-0 win.

The mighty Pitch Count rules all of baseball even though all pitch counts are a bit different. But none of that matters anymore.

One size fits all, yet pitching injuries continue to set new records.

Numbers, not common sense, rule.

The sense of awe and accomplishment, the sense of wonder, don’t rule the day in Nerdball these days, thanks Chancellor Manfred. MLB can’t get out of its own way. This is the analytical game they wanted and now they have it and a lot of baseball fans have had it and can’t wait for football to start.

What a shame.

As I have written here at The Story for quite some time, AMBS is always ahead of the curve, MLB is stifling greatness.

Seven no hitters are so untouchable with the current mindset and development of pitchers.

This week I was asked what is the best way for MLB to promote its young stars, kind of how the NBA learned to promote Larry Bird and Magic Johnson back in the day when I covered those amazing players.

Easy, I said.

They can start by letting Paul Skenes complete a no hitter.

This is the second time the rookie has been pulled with a no-hitter. He also threw six no-hit innings against the Cubs on May 17th.

Pirates’ fans deserve better. I personally love the Pirates as a franchise and the fan base. The Pirates, to me, represent blue collar baseball going back to that 1960 team that broke Mickey Mantle’s heart.

Then along came “We are Family.’’

Then the Jim Leyland Pirates and Leyland will rightfully go into the Hall of Fame this month. And not too long ago there were the Clint Hurdle Pirates who made the wild card a wild treat and I was there as the gritty Pittsburgh fans chanted “Cue-to, Cue-to’’ in 2013.

Pirates fans so desperately want to have a winning team and all the losing has not yet presented that and even the gift of Paul Skenes, who was essentially ready to pitch in the majors the day he left LSU as the first draft pick.

And don’t dare give me this is for the long-range health of Paul Skenes as a Pirate. The Pirates decided not to keep Gerrit Cole, remember.

Do you really think they are going to pay Skenes the money to stay in Pittsburgh? Do you think Skenes is going to want to stay in Pittsburgh if the team doesn’t ante up not only for him but for big-time hitters?

Hello Dodgers! Or Mets! Or some team willing to spend money.

Skenes should have been with the Pirates coming right out of spring training, but he didn’t arrive and make his first start until May 11. The Pirates had him on a short leash at AAA where Skenes made seven starts.

Perhaps the worst thing about this last removal from a no-hitter was the fact that the manager doing the bidding of the front office Derek Shelton proclaimed it was an easy decision.

This should not have been an easy decision. He also said he could tell Skenes was tired just looking at him. Tired? Skenes just buzz-sawed through two innings of Milwaukee batters on 13 pitches.

Shelton wasn’t watching the same game I was watching. But managers have to say a lot of stuff these days to keep their jobs and keep the front office off their backs.

Skenes was getting stronger as the game went on like all great pitchers do. That’s what they do. Get ‘em early or you don’t get ‘em at all.

Shelton clearly had to be under orders not to let Skenes get over 100 pitches because it is a proven baseball fact that if you are gliding along, making opposing hitters look silly, as soon as you hit 101 on the Pitch Count Monster, and not on the gun but on the pitch total, your arm is in danger. If you happen to get to 110, it’s all over but the shouting.

Even if you throw a devastating “splinker.’’

Skenes does pre-game work with heavy balls and such. That is part of his prep. And who knows what kind of weight room work is being done. Today’s pitchers have all kinds of minefields to cross including too much spin and too much velocity.

One noted pitching expert told BallNine after seeing a video of Skenes pre-game workout, “What is he trying to do, get to 108?’’

And they have a legion of brainwashed fans who scream: “Old men yelling at clouds’’ and do that screaming from their parents’ basement. Just check the comments.

It’s also interesting to me that with all that pre-game work, Skenes didn’t really hit his stride until he had a few innings under his belt in that last start. But what do I know? What does this longtime pitching expert know?

There are people in charge who never threw a pitch in their life but have studied and created the data. They know better. They even know how to count to 100.

And they have a legion of brainwashed fans who scream: “Old men yelling at clouds’’ and do that screaming from their parents’ basement. Just check the comments.

All I know is that Nolan Ryan figured it out and pitched seven no-hitters and I never saw Nolan with a weighted ball or in the weight room. Maybe he was into it, I don’t know. He did throw a football and I believe when he played catch, he would have two balls in his glove and throw a third.

He loved the stationary bike. In fact, I was one of many reporters who interviewed Nolan after one of his brilliant outings and you know what Nolan was doing?

He was riding the stationary bike long after his start to keep his legs in shape.

Hmmm.

How come we don’t see any post-game press conferences with pitchers, who might be hitting 100 and might be heading for Tommy John surgery, riding stationary bikes.

NDD, Nerd Development Department, please assign some of your many Ivy League interns to get on that stationary bike study ASAP.

Whatever you do, No No-No over 100 pitches.

The Bucs and Shelton may be running scared because rookie pitcher Jared Jones was just put on the injured list with a lat injury. Jone has averaged 86 pitches per start and had not gone over 100 pitches in any starts this season but still managed to pull a lat.

Better bring him down to 82 pitches a start.

Good thing Shelton didn’t let the kid throw 101 pitches in that one lonely start five starts ago where Jones threw 100 pitches. Somehow, he still got hurt when his pitch count was an average of 86 per game.

Trust the pitch count science.

Just spitballing here, but maybe take a look at mechanics and other factors not just pitch counts as the enemy.

As for Skenes, the top evaluator noted, “He’s got that big water tank thing that he does, weighted balls, he throws footballs, does all this stuff. Your arm isn’t built for that. To me, that’s way more concerning that 100 pitches.’’

At this point, though it all works for Skenes.

I am smart enough to know that who knows what’s right and what’s wrong but like I said earlier, I think Nolan Ryan was onto something with the stationary bike and building up his lower body in a non-stressful way. I do know pitchers of the past did not go through Tommy John surgery like today’s pitchers go through it. The Mets Drew Smith was the latest to undergo elbow surgery on Saturday.

“The Pirates other kid who throws 101, Jones, he’s on the IL now,’’ the scout said of mph, not pitch totals. “These are just ticking time bombs. They are all ticking time bombs with the stuff they are doing. And then they come up with a number of pitches.

“I went to the field. I stretched every day. I ran and I played catch, that’s it. I wasn’t trying to make myself throw harder. I wanted to have better command. I wanted to make better pitches with my curve ball, I wanted to be able to throw my changeup over for strikes. I wanted to have a good slider. I wanted to have a good cutter,’’ the evaluator said. “I wanted to know how to pitch, that’s what I went to the park for, I wasn’t training to try to throw harder. I wasn’t trying to strike every hitter out.’’

To his credit, Skenes is looking for more soft contact and the “splinker’’ is a big part of that and maybe he will use it earlier in the game to try to keep his pitch count down but it’s also the stress of individual pitches and Skenes looked like he was in complete control with those 11 strikeouts and one walk on Thursday.

You just can’t throw a number out there and say this is the Pitch Count DMZ, don’t cross it.

Use baseball sense. Use common sense.

My friend writer Jeff Bradley, brother of Scott Bradley, former major league catcher and current Princeton baseball coach, posted this worthwhile comment: “I am a 100-pitch denier … The thrill of my brother Scott’s MLB career was catching a no-hitter in 1990. That night in the Kingdome, a young lefty named Randy Johnson threw 138 pitches. The Bradley family would like to thank the Mariners for not pulling RJ at 100 pitches.’’

Greatness was not stifled 34 years ago.

One of my favorites Jim Leyland quotes, and I’ve written it before, but in this case, it is worth taking out of the quote box again: “When I call down to the bullpen I don’t ask how old they are?’’ Leyland said.

If a pitcher can pitch, he can pitch. Age is irrelevant and Paul Skenes at 22 seems a lot wiser and a lot more talented than other 22-year-olds. He can pitch and if he has the opportunity to work the eighth inning, have another brief inning and keeping his pitch count reasonable, he should get that opportunity and then see what the ninth brings and if he gives up a hit, get him out, but he deserves the opportunity to earn that no-hitter. Fans of his team deserve a little sunshine, too.

For his part, Skenes played the good soldier, but you could tell he was miffed by it all and after the game stated to reporters: “I definitely wanted to finish it. But throwing every six days, five days, whatever it is now … I definitely understand that side of it.’’

Let’s hope Skenes has found the formula to stay healthy. He is such a treat to watch, must-see pitching. Getting to watch Nolan Ryan pitch live at the ballpark was always a thrill for me. Watching greatness never gets old.

But stifling greatness, that gets old real quicky.

Baseball should thank its lucky stars it has a talent and a person like Paul Skenes to carry a Lost Franchise. Let greatness flow.

“He had some easy innings I think I would have at least let him go eight innings,’’ the evaluator, a former pitching coach said.

He then added this point.

“You do have to have concern because they have had kid gloves on him since he signed.

“Our starters used to be marathon runners who trained to be marathon runners,’’ the evaluator said. “Now we have sprinters. Everybody is a sprinter. Go hard and then you are done, and we will bring a bunch of other guys to go hard, and they are done after their inning and that’s it. The people who run the game have no clue.’’

Sad but true.

No No-No for Paul Skenes.

Another opportunity for baseball greatness lost to the No No-No Nerds.