Strasburg

The thing I don't get about the whole shutting down Stephen Strasburg thing is why they chose to base the entire thing on innings pitched and not pitches thrown.  Obviously, their concern is the damage done on his young arm every time he throws a pitch, not every time his team happens to be on the field while he's pitching. I remember this NY Times magazine joint a few years back:

“Imagine a slingshot,” Fleisig said, referring to a pitcher’s cocked arm position just before release. “Anything with elastic, if you do it a lot, it starts to get little tears in it. When you have them in your elbow or shoulder, your body starts to say: ‘I feel sore. I better stop.’ That’s your body signaling, ‘We have a little damage, let me go fix it.’ It’s a brilliant system. But if you don’t stop, the tears get too big. They start connecting to each other, till no matter how long you rest, they’re too big for [the body] to repair.”

Meanwhile, a pitch thrown equals a pitch thrown, but innings can be wildly varied. A normal inning is usually in the 12-15ish range, but can go up to 30 and can actually be as little as 3. All innings are not equal. Obviously they'd adjust if he threw 27 pitches a game, but I don't understand why they decided on innings in the first place.