When pitchers have long layoffs, it's common for them to lack sharpness, mostly location. A short outing is a realistic possibility, and, trust me, the VT coaching staff knows it.

5 possibilities of what might happen. I gave a 6th possibility from the crystal ball

It was a definitive statement

just like the other 5 iin the list

Renfrow hasn't had a regular start in more than two weeks (May 14 against Clemson). Since then, his only appearance has been for one inning (the Saturday UNCG debacle), where he threw 26 pitches. Then he disappeared. Pitching is about steady rhythm, and even if Renfrow does start today, I don't expect him to be sharp. That's just how pitching usually works. The Clemson series was huge, and Renfrow threw 104 pitches. If there's a fitness problem (and I think there is), then it probably traces back to that.

Clemson coming up on Thursday. His last game was vs Clemson not vs UNCG

And I knew I wrote it backward. I just never circled back to fix it. I have another post that shows the lines for Renfrow's last five starts (in correct order). Doesn't change a thing — as I wrote then, Renfrow hasn't pitched since May 14, and no matter how you look at it, that's a less-than-ideal stat approaching an elimination game. ** Edited by GWS757 at 5/30/2026, 3:38:55 PM

Pitch counts prevent work horses from being discovered there's no magical way to protect arms most humans can't do it without getting hurt for some reason work horses can but we'll never know bc they're babied since little league IMHO

protecting pitchers but what is magic about 104 pitches? Why would fewer alarms be raised by 95, or 99? How many breaking balls did he throw out of 104 vs. his norm? How stressful was his outing? How many warm up pitches did he throw? Weather conditions come in to play. I guess all those things are charted too. I always go back to 2008 and Joba Chamberlain with the Yankees and the “Joba rules”. Limited pitch count and appearances then transition him into a starting role. The result? Shoulder problems that shut him down. There seem to be a lot of variables to this pitching deal.

We can't argue that this much time off is normal, though. We do know that, during the Great Renaissance Period of 2026, Renfrow's performance went up, as did, logically enough, his pitch counts. Pitt, 04/17:  6.0 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 9 K, 105 P NCST, 04/24: 8.0 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 1 BB, 9 K, 108 P Cal, 05/01: 7.0 IP, 4 H, 1 ER, 3 BB, 9 K, 112 P UNCG, 05/09: 1.0 IP, 3 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 1 K, 26 P Clem, 05/00: 7.1 IP, 6 H, 1 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, 104 P That kinda high-stress work (discounting UNCG, which was most certainly planned) can add up. That one inning against UNCG was probably intended to get Renfrow some work against hostile opposition while, at the same time, giving him some recovery between conference starts. If I had to guess — and it's just speculation, same as everyone else here — it'd be that Renfrow experienced some abnormal soreness after the Clemson start. But I am open to other theories. Two last points: 1. Man, when I lay out Renfrow's final four ACC lines like that, they look even better than I thought. 2. We probably agree that the Yankees' mismanagement of Joba Chamberlain was monumentally inept. They in effect used him as a guinea pig before we had much data analysis to go by. ** Edited by GWS757 at 5/30/2026, 12:49:03 PM

but I also think it's hard to argue against more pitches/time becoming detrimental at some point...it doesn't magically go from perfect to cooked, but more isn't always better

Their starter threw mostly soft stuff and VT was pressing maybe if your ace is on the mound and they score less runs your batters take more relaxed ABs we'll never know... ** Edited by PBHokie at 5/30/2026, 9:07:07 AM

choppers) hits that CP got. We would likely have wasted our ace in that game.

Imagine how Daniel and Petrich felt. 🤦🏻‍♂️ ** Edited by GWS757 at 5/30/2026, 12:59:35 PM ** Edited by GWS757 at 5/30/2026, 12:59:57 PM

VT gets the expected runs with bases loaded and first and third with no outs and they win

happened to us. Instead of us hitting choppers, we hit clean grounders into double plays. We had very little chance of making those chopper plays, that's why they went down as hits. If you want to use revisionist theory, then take away those choppers and think what could have been. You have to give their pitcher credit for limiting our hitting. We knew going in that it would take more than two runs to win.

Was only 6-2, today is a new day let's see how they react and obviously need to pounce on UCLA early all the pressure is on them