Lynn Henning

History shows Jim Leyland made right decision on pitchers

Fans trying to digest the Tigers' indigestible finish to their 2009 season seem to focus on manager Jim Leyland's starting pitching choice in the Oct. 3 game against the White Sox at Comerica Park.

It was a rookie, Alfredo Figaro. He got the assignment because the Tigers were fresh out of fresh starters. And that's why the flak has been flying.

The critics wanted Leyland to go with Justin Verlander or Rick Porcello on shorter rest.

Their reasoning is that either pitcher would have given the Tigers a shot in a game they desperately needed to win if they were to avoid finishing in a tie with the Minnesota Twins, or worse, as the Tigers tried to lock up a playoff spot. The tie resulted. A playoff game followed. The Tigers lost and headed home to Detroit, sans postseason, in small part because they withered in that Oct. 3 game to the White Sox, losing 5-1.

Here are two reasons why the critics are all wet with their beliefs that either Verlander or Porcello should have pitched that Saturday.

Nate Cornejo and Kenny Baugh.

Do you remember them? They were -- emphasis on were -- two excellent right-hand pitching prospects for the Tigers in 2001.

Cornejo was 21 when, during the '01 season, he pitched a combined 196 2/3 innings in the Tigers farm system and in Detroit with the big-league club. The Tigers kept trotting him to the mound in a bid to get him 20 victories between his two stints in the minors and with manager Phil Garner's team.

Not surprisingly, Cornejo returned in 2002 without his old hard sinker and with an arm that was soon acting up. He had recurring physical troubles and ended up retiring from the Chicago White Sox system in 2006.

Baugh was the Tigers' first-round draft pick in 2001 from Rice University. Rice made it into the NCAA tournament that season and Baugh during one game threw 171 pitches.

The Tigers ignored his workload, signed him that summer, and tossed him straight into minor-league duty. He soon was having surgery for a torn labrum. This season he was still bouncing around the minor leagues, this time with Houston's Double-A team, where he pitched in 12 games and had a 5.12 earned-run average.

Here are two case studies among a multitude of such examples why you don't pitch Verlander on short rest -- not when he throws 240 innings, as he did the past season.

It is why you don't pitch a 20-year-old kid of Porcello's limited experience on short rest when he is already throwing 170 innings before he can legally buy a drink.

I hear the good-old-days crowd snort at this pitch-count, innings-count business all the time. Most of them counter with reminders that Mickey Lolich pitched on short rest in the 1968 World Series and won three games. They point out the years he exceeded 300 innings and how it never seemed to shorten his career.

And they're right. What they also ignore is that there wasn't anyone who played alongside him, or against him, who didn't appreciate that Lolich was a physical marvel -- an astounding exception to a rule that states: throwing a baseball is an unnatural physical act.

Among the countless victims of good-old-days rock-headedness was one of Lolich's teammates: Denny McLain, who pitched 661 innings for the Tigers during the 1968-69 seasons. It shouldn't come as news that McLain's arm was shot at the end of the '69 campaign.

Verlander and Porcello are mentioned in the same breath today as Lolich and McLain were 40 years ago. Fans might want to ponder the wisdom of the Tigers today taking care of these arms. It makes more sense than abusing them in the name of winning a game the Tigers failed to win Oct. 3 because of weak bats rather than any absence of competent arms.

lynn.henning@detnews.com