Throughout the first half the Mariners talked about potentially finding ways to limit rookie Michael Pineda’s workload and it sounds like they’ve decided to go with extra rest between starts.
Pineda, who’s currently on pace to throw around 195 innings, will have nine days off before making his next start and manager Eric Wedge told Greg Johns of MLB.com that the Mariners “will pick spots” to give him similar extra rest down the stretch with “a day here, two days there, that type of deal where we can spread it out a little more.”
Pineda has been fantastic with a 3.53 ERA, .205 opponents’ batting average, and 133/43 K/BB ratio in 21 starts, but the 22-year-old right-hander has never thrown even 140 innings in a season before and Seattle won’t be playing for much besides draft position in September. Wedge declined to “go public with” a specific innings limit, but the plan he describes would probably leave Pineda throwing around 175 innings.
