PHILADELPHIA – Jerry Manuel isn’t going to treat Mike Pelfrey – or any of his pitchers, for that matter – with kid gloves.
Pelfrey threw his second complete game in a row Monday night in a 9-1 home win over the Astros and already has pitched nearly 101/3 more innings this year than he did last season. At this rate, with at least a month to go in the season, Pelfrey is on pace to smash his career high and go over 200 innings.
Anything more than 40 innings above a previous career high is considered a danger zone because it supposedly raises the risk of injury to a young pitcher, but Manuel has other interests in mind.
“You’re trying to win a championship – period,” he said. “And I’ve always said that in the course of winning a championship, there will be some damage to some folks. That’s the sacrifice, the cost, the price of a championship. Someone will have to do something that they haven’t done before. That’s the price that you pay.”
That sounds fine to Pelfrey, who has won 11 of his past 13 decisions after a 2-6 start and who wasn’t too thrilled about the possibility of getting more rest than usual the final month of the regular season.
With the help of an off day tomorrow, Manuel hopes to get through the next six days with just four starters after John Maine was put on the DL – and perhaps lost for the season – with a bone spur in his right shoulder. Manuel said the final spot in the rotation will go to a September call-up after that, most likely young lefty Jon Niese.
Thanks to his run-scoring groundout in the fourth, David Wright became the first player in franchise history to record four years of at least 100 RBIs. Even more impressive was that Wright accomplished it in his first four seasons.