"Listening to Joe Girardi explaining why it wasn't the right thing to do, bringing back CC Sabathia to pitch Saturday night after he'd "taxed" himself by throwing 27 pitches before the rains suspended Game 1 of the division series, and then hearing his Tigers counterpart Jim Leyland give the same assessment on his ace, Justin Verlander, once again illustrated how drastically baseball has changed from those halcyon days before pitch counts.

By now we all get it - between the longer season with its three-tiered playoffs and the amount of money clubs have invested in their starting pitchers, especially the ace types like Sabathia and Verlander, arms must be preserved at all costs. Five-man rotations and "Creeping LaRussa-ism" specialized relief, which infiltrated the game in the '70s and gradually eroded the number of complete games to a precious few, have reduced starting pitchers to pampered, twice-a-week specialists who, quite understandably, cannot relate to the all-purpose workaholics of yesteryear.

Or vice versa."