You ever get the feeling the Red Sox mapped all this out from day one?

They didn't want Buchholz to pitch more than 180 innings this year, because he pitched only 148 innings last year. So when he got away from his fastball this spring, they gave him some time off before sending him to Pawtucket to re-establish his fastball command. Now he's on pace to finish the regular season with fewer than 180 innings. Right on target.

Same thing with Masterson. Last year he pitched 153 innings, and I'm sure the Red Sox don't want him topping 180 this season. Just wait; at some point Masterson is going to get a nice rest.

Of course, Masterson was sent down and is going to pitch out of the pen when he comes back up. That will put him in position to stay at or below the inning target. Buchholtz is right on target for his innings too. I agree with Rob, I think they had all this in mind and weren't going to let what was going on in the pennant race dictate changes to the plan to protect their young pitchers long term.

Back in spring training, I broached the subject of how to handle Manny Parra's inning workload. It was a hot topic then, because the Brewers were trying to figure out what to do with him and the other starting pitching candidates. In the end, Chris Capuano got hurt, they released Claudio Vargas and Manny opened the season in the rotation. He pitched well enough that when Yovanni Gallardo came back from his injury, Dave Bush was sent down. Carlos Villanueva's ineffectiveness as a starter caused him to be bumped in favor of Seth McClung. Until the Brewers acquired CC Sabathia this week, they really only had 5 legitimate options to start games, so the Parra issue was on the back burner. Sabathia's acquisition briefly brought the issue back up, until Jeff Suppan landed on the disabled list and left the team with 5 starters once again.

Looking back at some gamelogs from early in the season, it is apparent that the team had some plan going. They pulled Parra after 4 innings a few times despite pitch counts under 85. Of course, if they don't do those sorts of things in the second half, his innings per start is going to go up and he'll go upwards of his current 166 IP pace. The improvement he has shown leads me to believe that will probably be the case. From here on out, if he averages 6 innings per start and makes a start every 5th day in the second half, he'll end up with about 177 innings. That would be 44 more than last season, when he threw 133 total innings, not including any potential playoff innings. That would put the Brewers in the position of violating their own general "30 inning increase" guideline, potentially by quite a bit if they make a run in the playoffs.

Now, these things should not be set in stone. It's not like Parra is guaranteed health at 163 innings and injury at 175 innings. But the team has guidelines for a reason and Parra has shown that he is a valuable asset worthy of protection with how he pitched in the first half. What I would like to see is the Brewers take some steps to protect Parra's workload in the second half so that he ends up with about 155 or so innings in the regular season. If they do that, then any extra risk wouldn't be intolerable because the extra innings would come in a potential League Championship or World Series, and the risk would then clearly be worth the reward.

The question is, will the Brewers be proactive enough to make these sorts of moves? This brings us back to the Red Sox handling of their young pitchers. They are in a high pressure pennant race again, as they are virtually every year. Yet, they are finding ways to limit their pitchers and keep them on track for inning goals despite what must be considerable fan pressure to ride their best pitchers. Of course, they've won 2 World Series in the last four years and have earned some credibility and leeway to make tough decisions. Selling the idea that Manny Parra needs to come out of the rotation in favor of some lesser loved starters like Seth McClung or Dave Bush to the fans at this point is going to be tough. Given the fact that the team went out and acquired CC Sabathia, it would seem to be unlikely that they would start making moves that run counter to "win now" in any major way.

The larger point here is that good franchises control their circumstances. They do not allow themselves to be pressured or pushed off their long term plans by the crisis of the moment. For the Brewers to truly take the next step in their evolution from cellar-dweller to powerhouse they are going to need to get out in front of some of these situations and control events instead of allowing themselves to be controlled by them. I'm not saying that if they allow Parra to go over X amount of innings that they have necessarily failed in some way, but it wouldn't be a positive sign.