PITTSBURGH — Jared Jones was lifted from a game this week after 59 pitches despite blowing away pretty much everyone he faced. He looked like Nolan Ryan in his prime and was basically a Bryan Reynolds misplayed ball away from pitching five perfect innings, but because of some "prearranged plan," he was pulled out of the game after five innings.

It was ridiculous, but apparently all a part of the Pirates' plan to preserve the arms of their young phenoms in Jones and Paul Skenes. They are being protective, and they are following sort of the new age way of trying to preserve young pitching arms. I get it. We all get it.

This is what Ben Cherington said about the cautious approach they are using ...

"I think globally for baseball, not just as an industry, but just baseball as a sport generally, down to the grassroots amateur level, we need to be looking at this issue holistically, in a way that's comprehensive and is examining every potential piece of the issue," Cherington said on 93.7 the Fan. "It just seems like something that is far too complicated to rely on one thing as the cause. Many times, when there is a problem, there can be more than one cause. We really need to be considering all of it."

That's all well and good except for one thing: this surge in arm injuries that has caused Major League Baseball and the players association to sound alarms is mostly fiction.

Here is the actual data from best-selling author Travis Sawchik, who is an analytics guru — and thus subscribes to many of the most up-to-date theories and methods in baseball — but has made it clear there is no epidemic of arm injuries this year versus any other year. In fact, there have been fewer injuries this year (not more) than in recent years, and it seems a lot more random as to when these things occur than anything else.

Through the first 100 days of this season, there have been 16 pitchers in major league organizations, nine of whom were on major league rosters, who have needed Tommy John surgery. In 2021, those numbers were 47 and 11; in 2014, there were 39 and 11; and you can go all the way back to 2000, when there were 17 and 10.

Each year there have been more and more of these pitch count/inning count/stressful inning count/recovery count/count dracula/whatever programs — and preventive measures — and yet the injuries continue.

This even though they increasingly treat these guys like they are china dolls. Yet it doesn't seem to make a difference.

It's almost as if injuries happen to some players, and they are likely more random than anything else. Many pitchers are workhorses, throw 180-190 innings yearly, eat innings and don't seem to have arm injuries.

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