Originally Posted by real green:
It seems your argument is that mental stress creates stress on the arm?
Well, that is PART of my argument, but actually it’s more that mental stress causes problems on all parts of the body. Here’s a bit of why I feel that way. Let’s put the same pitcher into two different scenarios.
Scenario 1 – Starting pitcher is having a good home outing. It’s the top of the 5th, his offense gave him a 6-0 lead in the 1st inning and it’s held up, all of his pitches are working well, he hasn’t allowed a runner with less than two outs, no runner has gotten past 2nd, and he’s thrown 60 pitches.
Scenario 2 – Starting pitcher is having a lousy home outing. It’s the top of the 5th, his offense hasn’t given him a run and he’s given up 4, only a couple of his pitches are working well, every inning the leadoff batter has reached, every inning there’s been a runner on 3rd with less than 2 outs, and he’s only 60 pitches.
Which of those scenarios would likely cause the pitcher to do something that causes a physical problem? It’s not that I think mental stress directly causes an arm injury, but I think it can cause a change in mechanics that does lead to arm injury.