Pitch counts approved for high school baseball in Ohio

The Ohio High School Athletic Association announced its maximum allowed pitch counts for baseball pitchers on Thursday. This was in response to a mandate by the National Federation of State High School Associations last year that each state do so prior to the upcoming spring season.

“We have met that goal,” OHSAA assistant commissioner Jerry Snodgrass said in a statement. “We continue to look at further ways in which these limitations will affect teams as well as providing adequate education for our coaches and those in non-school baseball.”

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The new ruling is a combination of pitches and recovery days. There will be a daily limit of 125 pitches. There also will be varied recovery days: 1-30 pitches, zero days recovery; 31-50, one day; 51-75, two days; 76-plus, three days.

Other new pitch-count rules are a limit of one game in a doubleheader if the total surpasses 31; a daily pitch count may be exceeded to finish an at-bat; schools must supply daily pitch-count data to a collection system and have it available to the OHSAA upon request; suspended games will count toward pitch counts; scrimmages and preview pitch counts will count.

Also, teams will forfeit any game in which a pitch count is violated.

Previously in Ohio, pitchers were regulated by an innings-pitched rule. There are no pitch limits for softball.

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