Tony DeMarco

There’s no getting around it. CC Sabathia’s time as a Milwaukee Brewer will be brief. He’s living on a short-term lease with one obligation — to help pitch a team into the postseason that hasn’t been there in 26 years.

That task doesn’t rest solely on his shoulders, of course — although atop a 6-7, roughly 300-pound frame, Sabathia’s shoulders seemingly could bear any burden.

But every fifth day (give or take an occasional extra day — more on that later), Sabathia is expected to do what an ace is supposed to do — win. Why else would the Brewers send a package of prospects including the best in their system (Matt LaPorta) to the Indians for what amounts to a three-month rental — 16 regular-season starts, tops?

And after that? The speculation already has begun, and you have to think Sabathia will end up in either Southern California or New York, with a nine-figure contract spread over six or seven years.

Because in the meantime, boy, has Sabathia lived up to his hired-gun status. Not since Doyle Alexander for the 1987 Detroit Tigers (dealt for some kid named Smoltz) has a pitcher traded during a season run off more than the eight consecutive victories Sabathia has since donning Brew Crew blue.

Sabathia has had one chance to tie Alexander’s record of nine consecutive wins, but left his last start with a no-decision. His next chance comes Sunday against Pittsburgh, a team the Brewers have dominated this season.

And Sabathia will have six more opportunities to do what David Cone succeeded in doing for both the 1992 Blue Jays and 1995 Yankees, and what Randy Johnson did for the 1998 Astros — get his team into postseason play as a hired gun.

You have to like Sabathia’s chances, given the Brewers’ 6 1/2-game lead over the Philadelphia Phillies in the wild-card chase. Especially when you know that he is a superb 19-9 with a 2.88 ERA in September (and not including his two-start meltdown against Boston in the ALCS last October).

But the hired-gun obligation is two-sided — as in the Brewers can’t overextend him like a rental car on a lengthy vacation trip. And in this day of intensely monitoring pitch counts, workloads and high-stress innings, this situation has sparked an interesting debate.

The Brewers may have crossed the line (although Ned Yost won’t admit it) recently — when Sabathia was left in to complete a 9-2 victory over Houston and log 130 pitches. But a deeper look shows that what Yost said in response to criticism is right on the money.

Yes, Sabathia has thrown six complete games in 11 starts with the Brewers. But the pitch counts in those games are not at all out of the ordinary with one exception: 122, 110, 106, 103, 130, 117.

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Sabathia’s other high pitch total was 124, and that came in 6.2 rugged innings against the Cubs on July 28th, the only other start he hasn’t won. Yost also noted Sabathia’s average inning pitch count of 13.7 — one of the lowest in the game — and very few high-stress innings of 25-plus pitches. And, there is no doubting the soundness of Sabathia’s mechanics.

Sabathia already has pitched 210 innings, a pace that should put him in the 240s for the season. Last season, he established a career high with 241, and topped the 250 mark including the postseason. That doesn’t seem to be bothering him this season, now does it?

Yost said he wouldn’t purposely abuse any player — that he’d rather risk losing a game. And, to protect all five of his starters down the stretch, Yost is keeping them in rotation, even with three off-days on the schedule. Nobody will be skipped, so everybody will get more rest.

Sabathia made a recent start — the one following the 130-pitch outing — on an extra days’ rest, and wasn’t particularly sharp in a no-decision. He said the extra day off had more to do with his relative lack of command than being extended 130 pitches in his previous start. But you can be sure the pitch-count Gestapo out there will be monitoring things very closely the rest of the way.

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Just don’t include Nolan Ryan in that group. After watching the latest disintegration of a Texas Rangers pitching staff, Ryan has promised a more hands-on effort in his organization’s approach to pitching (not exactly the norm for a team president, but then again, there hasn’t been a team president with 324 victories, seven no-hitters and 5,714 strikeouts.)

In short, Ryan’s message is starting pitchers have been babied long enough. He wants to see his pitchers get into better physical condition, to throw more in live batting practice and side sessions, and be able to go deeper in games. That likely will mean higher pitch counts.

You can’t argue the fact that it worked for him, and nobody worried when his pitch-count totals reached 130-150 and even beyond on occasion.

There are two sides to every issue, and the financial parameters involved certainly lend credence to the current approach of extreme caution. But from this point of view, it’s refreshing to hear Ryan’s line of thinking. (And if you listen, you’ll hear it from many other old-schoolers who don’t have the same pulpit as Ryan).

And you have to think that with obligatory caution and monitoring, there should be a way to make it work. Pitchers can throw more pitches in a game without inordinate risk; they just have to be trained and conditioned to do so.

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