This is just a weird comp, and used to promote a fallacy. Nolan Ryan is almost in a league by himself with who he was. It also is truly a different era. And no, it’s not about protecting salaries, at least not directly. There are lots of recent studies/articles out there today about how damaging the current way of pitching is to pitchers, with higher velocities and spin rates. You could toss your pitchers out there for 100+ day in and day out but you are then going to have a lot of pitchers on the 60-IL. No team has the capacity to replace that. You will also shorten a pitcher’s career to abuse them like that, something no one wants, as yes, that does have salary, contract and earnings consequences. Plus, if you bothered to listen to any reports yesterday from the team, and in Baldelli’s post-game, which you obviously didn’t because it was the first thing he addressed, Ober was not well yesterday. They weren’t even for certain he would even be able to pitch. Many of you just want to lump each and every outing into the same because you’re oh so sad and emotional it’s not how things were and not what you want because you know better. Each and every outing has a different set of circumstances. Unfortunately, our emotional states seem not to allow for any nuanced thought.