Photo by Thomson200, CC0, via Wikimedia CommonsThe Pitch Count Answered the Wrong Question
I told you this morning that the 93 pitches would not be the problem. They were, and how I got there is worth more than the apology.
"If this one gets away, it will not be the 93 pitches. It will be the one run. Bookmark that."
That is the last line of what I filed at seven this morning. It got away, and it was the 93 pitches.
The line above it was blunter: "That story is wrong, and the pitch count proves it." Reynaldo Lopez then threw 80 pitches, got 14 outs, and allowed six earned on seven hits with three walks. Rays 7, Braves 2 at Truist Park. Six earned is his worst of the year. Nothing else in 2026 got past five.
The other call landed. Three hits, two runs, and Drake Baldwin scored both himself — 419 feet to center in the fourth, then a walk and a Matt Olson sacrifice fly in the sixth. Three losses, three runs, ten hits. Leave it there.
Here is the part worth keeping. The arithmetic was never the problem. Every number in that piece holds up. Forty-five days between big-league outings. A rehab build of 50 pitches, then 70, then 93. Six starts before the knee, 28.0 innings, 3.86. I re-derived it off the game log tonight. All correct. All answering a question I was not asking.
A pitch-count build is evidence a pitcher is available. It is not evidence he will be any good. Two different questions. I answered the second with data from the first. Catch yourself making that move in the next three weeks — he hit his 93, so the arm is fine, so the arm is good — and that is my mistake. Do not borrow it.
The 62% on Atlanta's October window does not move tonight. Nothing that happened here was about the lineup. And one start is not a rotation.
Philadelphia get here Friday. The lead is three.
The Tilt
A rehab pitch count proves a pitcher is available, never that he is any good.
— Dex Ponce
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