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PIAA baseball pitch counts: The current rules limit how much a pitcher can throw

GametimePA staff
Dallastown's Alex Weakland delivers a pitch in the first inning of the PIAA Class 6A baseball title game Friday, June 16, 2017, at Medlar Field at Lubrano Park in State College. After a 3.5-hour rain delay and despite outhitting Pennsbury 7-4, Dallastown lost 1-0 in Pennsbury's walk-off win in the seventh inning.

This story was originally published Jan. 26, 2017.

The PIAA Board of Directors voted unanimously Jan. 25, 2017, to approve a pitch count rule that will go into effect for the 2017 high school baseball season.

The rule is designed to limit the number of pitches a pitcher can throw during a week. Previously, the PIAA based its pitching rules on the number of innings in a given week.

“How many times you pitch is really the damage on your arm. Not how many innings you pitch,” Dr. Glen Fleisig, the research director for the American Sports Medicine Institute, told GameTimePA in June 2016.

MORE: Rise in pitching injuries has experts on alert

What are the pitching rules?

  • If a pitcher throws 1 to 25 pitches in a game, no rest is required.
  • For 26 to 50 pitches, a pitcher requires one calendar day of rest.
  • For 51 to 75 pitches, two calendar days are needed.
  • A pitcher who throws 76 to 100 pitches needs three calendar days.
  • A pitcher is not to exceed 200 pitches in a week.

If a pitcher reaches the maximum pitch count permitted in a calendar day during an at-bat, that pitcher is allowed to continue to pitch to that batter until the batter records an out or reaches base, or until a third out has been made before the end of that at-bat.

Pitchers throwing too much

“There’s an epidemic going on here where coaches across the nation are just throwing their pitcher too much,” Central York baseball coach Mike Valencik said in June 2016. “There has to be a limit. That limit now is limitless.”

More:Driven by defeat, Dallastown baseball striving for a state title in 2018

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It was an expected change by the PIAA, coming after the National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS) approved a national pitch count rule the year before. The mandate went into effect nationwide for the 2017 baseball season.

This article includes reporting from the Wilkes-Barre Citizens Voice, via The Associated Press.