Pitch Counts are for Pussies!! Volume 37!!

Getting right to the point. Yup, Carlos Zambrano has a "tired arm" and has seen a drop-off in his velocity. He's 27, he's built like a brick shithouse... he's one of the guys that everybody mentions when they write stupid articles about how pitch counts are bad for baseball... because "Zambrano could throw 200 pitches" and "everybody should finish what they start."

Obviously we'll never know the exact reason that Zambrano's arm is bothering him. It could be as simple as one bad pitch and a tweak... or it could be the accumulation of work over 5 months of baseball, but humor me for a second here...

It could also be the fact that Zambrano's thrown as many as 130 pitches in a game this year. He's also been stretched to 125, 119, and 118.

The 125 and 118 were in back-to-back starts against the Marlins and Brewers on July 24th and July 29th, and since then, Zambrano's thrown 26 2/3rds innings and given up 22 earned runs. And despite his recent struggles, he was still extended to 119 pitches on August 15th.

So yeah, sure, probably coincidence, right?

Pitching coach Larry Rothschild said Zambrano isn't in any pain and his arm feels good.

Which is why he's missing starts and getting banged around when he pitches.

"It's just that he's gone through this every year the last four or five years, at a point in time where his arm feels a little bit heavy, tired," Rothschild said. "I think everybody goes through that, I think it's a little bit of a dead arm period.

Yeah, he goes through this every year. Sort of like how Mark Prior goes for Tommy John's surgery every year, it's just part of his routine! It's just a little bit of a dead arm.

You give a guy $90 Million Dollars, and then you abuse the shit out of him in the first year of his new contract? That seems like a great idea... or maybe it's why your team hasn't won anything since Larry King was born.

Dick Harden tag added, just because he's on the team and it makes me chuckle.