Ryan Has His Limit : Astro Pitcher Doesn’t Like It, but After 110 Pitches He’s Done

Nolan Ryan has pitched 4,188 innings, he has struck out 4,370 hitters and he is 40 years old, which of course means that in his 20th big league season, he has finally reached his limit.

Ryan doesn’t mind the Astros counting on him, but not this way.

He is probably thinking about it all wrong. Here is a better way. Pretend it’s kind of like fishing in a big old stock tank on his ranch in Alvin, Tex. Say each pitch is represents a fish. Once you go over your limit, the game warden comes to get you. Manager Hal Lanier is the game warden.

Ryan’s limit is 110 pitches. Any more than that and he’s over the limit the Houston Astros put on Ryan’s right elbow so it has a chance to last at least as long as the rest of him.

There is some fallout from this 110-pitch limit, the idea of General Manager Dick Wagner. Ryan, who wasn’t consulted about his own elbow, doesn’t like it, but he also admits he hasn’t had any of the ligament pain that forced him onto the disabled list twice last season.

That must mean it’s working, right?

“Nobody knows if it’s effective or not effective,” Ryan said. “If nothing happens, maybe it was responsible, maybe it wasn’t.”

But if the Astros continue to count Ryan’s pitches and remove him after he reaches his 110-pitch limit, this much seems certain:

Ryan may never pitch another complete game. And that means he may never pitch another no-hitter. Ryan has five of them, more than any other pitcher in baseball history, but it’s extremely unlikely he could get another if he’s allowed only 110 pitches.

“The chances of me pitching even a complete game or a shutout are pretty slim right now,” Ryan said.

But the 110-pitch limit is the game plan for Lanier, who figures he needs a healthy Ryan if the Astros are going to win the division again. “That whole thing was something Dick Wagner came up with,” Ryan said. “I’m not in agreement with 110. I think that on different nights, it could vary, depending on how easy I’m throwing, what kind of groove I’m in.

“I just feel that I should have had some input,” he said. “I feel like if anyone knows, it was me. It’s my elbow. But they went around me and made the decision. I don’t see how people can make decisions about somebody without even asking that person.”

Lanier, speaking for management, doesn’t go all hard-core when he’s asked to defend Ryan’s 110-pitch limit. But he also doesn’t dispute how effective Ryan has pitched under the new Astro policy (Make Every Pitch Count and Count Every Pitch).

And here’s an idea. Maybe when Ryan retires, the Astros won’t have give him a gold watch. They’ll give him a calculator instead.

Somehow, it all adds up, Lanier said. “He has certainly been effective,” he said. “I can’t say I completely agree with it (the limit), I still think there should be a little flexibility. If he’s throwing 90 m.p.h. in the seventh inning, he should maybe go a little longer. I’m not saying 110 is the right number.”

Maybe not, but it’ll do for right now. If the Astros have Ryan’s number, nobody else does. He may be the best 3-5 pitcher in baseball. His earned-run average is 2.96, he has struck out 96 and allowed only 51 hits in 73 innings.

Ryan, who pitches tonight against the Dodgers, has given up more than three runs just once in the 12 games he’s started. Ryan also has four no-decisions, although he never allowed more than two runs in any of them.

If this continues, Ryan has a shot at more no decisions, but not no-hitters.

The amazing thing is that it’s even continuing at all. There he is, a 40-year-old power pitcher, still overpowering hitters with a fastball that he can consistently throw at more than 90 m.p.h. In his last start, Ryan pitched seven innings in a 3-0 victory over San Francisco. He allowed five hits, struck out 12 and walked none. The radar gun clocked his fastest pitch at 96 m.p.h.

Obviously, not much has changed in the speed department for Ryan, who once beaned his own catcher with the New York Mets, Duffy Dyer, and gave him a concussion. Ryan later explained that he did it with a changeup.

No one knows what the radar gun measured on that pitch, but it was obvious that Dyer was cold-clocked.

Ryan can do it with his fastball and his curve, but when he can’t get his curve ball over the plate, Ryan possesses an effective change-up and even one other pitch, a sinker that broke almost into the dirt. This was a a newcomer, said catcher Alan Ashby.

“Last year was the first year he tried to throw it intentionally,” Ashby said.

And so this is how Nolan Ryan will pitch in the last season of his contract with the Astros. Ryan is in the third year of a four-year contract, but next season is not guaranteed. The Astros have the option of whether to keep Ryan, but they must decide within 10 days after the end of the season.

Should they keep Ryan?

“They’d be crazy not to,” said relief pitcher Dave Smith. “They’d be completely nuts.”

Lanier got a firm grip on himself and said he’d want Ryan back, too. Sort of.

“If we were talking right now, my recommendation would be to keep Nolan Ryan with us,” Lanier said. “As long as there are no arm problems, I’d love to have him back. I still feel that Nolan Ryan is one of the best pitchers in the game.”

So even though, courtesy of the Astros, we have learned that there is indeed a limit on what Ryan can do, he thinks he can keep throwing hard for a little while longer. How long, who knows?

But Ryan doesn’t know any other way to throw except hard. He says he can’t be another kind of pitcher and when he can no longer throw a fastball fast, he will leave the game.

“I can never visualize being any different type of pitcher than what I am,” he said. “I wouldn’t change my style. I think we all fear as pitchers that you wake up and suddenly you can’t throw hard anymore. I mean, after all, it’s a gift to start with. You can’t develop it. Either you have it or you don’t.

“But you just don’t lose it overnight,” he said. “I guarantee you, if that was to happen to me, I’d be as shocked as anyone. All I know is that I take each year as it comes.”

This year, who has the best legs in baseball?

Ryan, Lanier said.

And who has the best elbow?

Maybe not Ryan, but it hasn’t hurt him yet either, maybe because of the 110-pitch limit. Do the Astros consider that good news for Ryan the rest of the way. They’re counting on it.