The most important numbers facing Mat Latos this season? 56.1, 56.0, 122.3 and 106.2.
Those are the total number of innings he has pitched over the last four seasons of professional baseball.
While it is easy to look at him as a hard throwing young righty who — while carrying a 10-4 record with 2.54 ERA — is quickly becoming a staff ace, there is much more at stake here.
Major League Baseball is littered with pitchers who had the talent of Latos at a similar age but, after overuse, spent more time on the disabled list than on the mound.
How many bullets does Latos have left for 2010? (AP File Photo)
San Diego’s own Mark Prior tends to be an example of the worst-case scenario. Prior threw 167 innings his first year out of college in 2002, and saw that number shoot up to 211 in 2003 when he went 18-6 for the Chicago Cubs with a 2.46 ERA. It was magical. He was the ace of a Cubs staff that came within the most famous fan interference in baseball history of going to the World Series for the first time in nearly 100 years.
The only problem was that after that season Prior was never the same, and has failed to pitch a full season since.
Another cautionary tale is Prior’s former teammate Kerry Wood. Wood was the Stephen Strasburg of the late ‘90s. He threw harder than anyone in the league, and dazzled all who got the chance to watch him pitch. But after throwing an incredible 151 innings in the minors in 1997 at the age of 20, followed by a major league season in 1998 that included a 20-strikeout performance against the Astros, Wood needed Tommy John Surgery. Like Prior, Wood was never the same and is now struggling to hold a roster spot in the majors.
What does all this mean for Latos?
Well, for starters, it should throw up an immediate caution sign that he has gone from Low A ball to dominating the majors in less than a year. This is not to question his talent, but just to acknowledge that he is not the typical young starter.
But the Padres know this. With former pitchers in Bud Black and Jed Hoyer running this team, you can be sure that Latos is in good hands.
Even though they are leading a tough division half way through the season, the Padres organization knows that the long-term performance is much more valuable than a 2010post season run.
“At some point we’re going to need to give Mat a break,” Hoyer said in a recent interview. “We do have a plan in place that we haven’t announced to give him a nice long rest at some point in the season.
“We have to do it, he’s a 22-year-old kid. It’s something we discuss all the time.”
“We watch it all the time,” Black says acknowledging Latos’ rising inning count. “There are games where he probably could have gone an inning or two [more] when we took him out. “
Of course sometimes it comes to the point where the team needs to be able to trust Latos to tell them when he needs to come out of the game rather than letting his competitive drive get in the way and risk injury.
But Black is confident in the trust that he has built over the last year with his young pitcher.
“He’s done a pretty good job over the last couple years of being honest with me.”
As the season rolls along and the team get more and more national attention, it will become increasingly difficult for the Padres to sit their best pitcher. Latos has even received praise from the great ESPN who tends to overlook many of the teams out west. In his mid-season awards column, Jason Stark listed Latos as an honorable mention for the NL CY Young award.
Quite a feat when you consider the young righty is going up against the likes of Ubaldo Jimenez, Josh Johnson, Chris Carpenter and Roy Halladay.
As for the plan to give Latos rest, it will likely be one that either has him pitch out of the bullpen for a few weeks, or just sees him skip a few starts in late July or early August.
But one option that may be interesting to consider is sending him down to the minors for a month.
It is no secret that the Padres have been carried in 2010 by their pitching. Because of this, they will need every available arm they have to fend off the Dodgers, Giants and Rockies down the stretch.
Does it really seem smart to have one spot on your roster reserved for a guy that may only pitch two to five innings a week just to keep him fresh?
A six-man rotation is not an option for Hoyer because of off days in the schedule causing starting pitchers to only go once a week.
Whatever the organization decides to do, one thing is clear: Latos is for real. You only need to talk him for a few minutes before you realize the confidence that he carries out on the mound every time he takes the ball.
“My arm feels amazing,” Latos said after another impressive outing recently. “When it comes to every fifth day Buddy Black has one word for me, and it’s reliability.
“I told him by mid season that, come later in the year, he can count on me.”
With 106 innings pitched at the All-Star break, Latos may only have about 70 left to use from now until the Padres’ season ends.
“We certainly want him pitching in September,” Hoyer says. “Whether he can pitch for the whole month is the question.”
It’s a numbers game for Latos and the Padres, one that they can’t afford to lose.
Jeff Creps is an SDNN contributing sports writer.
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