Do the Washington Nationals need to limit starters’ innings?

Aces across baseball struggled down the stretch and into the postseason. Do the Washington Nationals need to worry about fatigue in their pitchers?

Starting pitching has been the pillar of the Washington Nationals for the entirety of this decade.

While the offense has had its highs and lows, Stephen Strasburg, Jordan Zimmerman, Gio Gonzalez, Tanner Roark, Max Scherzer, and several others have been the staple of the team.

Unsurprisingly, Washington pushed their starters in 2017, and its rotation led baseball with 973 innings.

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It’s understandable the Nationals rode their horses this season. Dusty Baker did not want to hand the game over to that black hole of a bullpen, and Scherzer and Strasburg are two of the most talented arms in the game. You want to play your best players as much as possible.

But, if you work your starters too hard in the regular season, are you jeopardizing your chances in October?

Aces across the game have begun to break down as the year progressed. In Boston, Chris Sale was sitting on a 2.37 ERA on July 26, with the Cy Young award in his grasp. But from August through the postseason, Sale posted a 4.64 ERA and allowed 17 homers in 13 starts. And that is not uncharacteristic for Sale – the lefty’s worst two career months by ERA are in August and September. It is clear that Sale wears down as the year goes on, yet Boston still allowed him to lead the majors in innings pitched.

And Sale is not alone. In Arizona, Zack Greinke bombed late in the year (2.84 ERA through July, 4.36 ERA afterwards). Corey Kluber was horrible in October, posting a 12.79 ERA in two postseason outings after tossing 89 innings over the final two months of the season! No one else threw more than 76.1 innings over that span.

Gonzalez struggled down the stretch, though that may have been more about a regression to the mean than fatigue. Even Scherzer, who prides himself on durability, was worn down by October, gutting through injuries against the Cubs.

But when you look at Strasburg’s second-half, the Nationals may have a blue print for success. Strasburg threw just 175.1 innings this season, and looked as fresh as ever in his two dominant postseason starts.

Of course, Strasburg’s innings were limited by a mid-season nerve impingement in his throwing arm, forcing him to miss nearly a month. But upon returning on Aug. 21, Strasburg got stronger later in the season, and limited opponents to five earned runs over 67.2 innings. While his peers looked done in the postseason, Strasburg had the best stuff of his career. So is limiting innings a real possibility for Washington?

You still want to win regular season games, so limiting guys like Strasburg and Scherzer is hurting your chance to win games in July. However, the Nationals are in a unique situation. While Washington will return nearly every key contributor in 2018, the rest of NL East should retain its dumpster fire status. The Nats can afford to lower their win equity for a few games and still coast to a division title.

Washington does not have to go to a strict six-man rotation; they can get creative throughout the season. Maybe use a sixth guy here, or a Johnny Wholestaff bullpen game there. They can even give their top guys an extended hiatus around the All-Star break, or give them a quicker hook during the actual games. These are all suggestions people threw out during the Strasburg Shutdown nonsense in 2012, but this isn’t the same hard innings cap.

And it’s not really an effort to prevent injuries either, because those can pop up at any time. It’s simply a concentrated, team-wide effort to limit someone to 175-190 innings, rather than 200-220.

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Pitching was not the issue during the 2017 NLDS, but it doesn’t hurt to be proactive for 2018 and beyond. A pitcher only has so many bullets in his arm – it seems best to save them for October, especially for a team with the luxury to plan ahead.

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