Yankees should have let Clarke Schmidt go for no-hitter

Schmidt said all of the right things about pitch counts, it being a long season and the Yankees having bigger priorities than just one game. 

That all sounds good. But it's also team-friendly PR. If you give Schmidt some truth serum and got a truly honest answer out of him, or if you came back to him in 10 years and asked the same question, you might get a different perspective. 

Teams are always going to have caution when it comes to their pitchers' arms. The days of Kerry Wood and Mark Prior throwing 125 pitches every time out are long gone — and for good reason. Especially given the way so many pitchers go max effort on every pitch to get peak velocity and rotation on their pitches. But one start going well above 100 pitches over the course of a season is not going to make a pitcher's arm fall off. It's not going to make their rotator cuff or elbow disconnect. You can let them go for one start when they have a chance to make history. 

It is also not like Schmidt needed to finish the game. If he had given up a hit at some point, the Yankees could have just as easily removed him and left him walk off the mound to another standing ovation. 

In the grand scheme of things, it is not a huge deal. The Yankees got the win. Schmidt was outstanding. Everybody left happy. It just seems like a missed opportunity for a pitcher who might not get that close again in his career.