REACHING HIS LIMIT

Nolan Ryan left the 1986 season determined he would not go through another like it. He would not endure any more elbow pain. He wouldn' t have it fixed, either. He would go to spring training in 1987 hoping his body had healed itself, something his doctor thought impossible. Ryan would quit if it hadn't.

He didn't, of course. Ryan speculated scar tissue bridged the torn ligament in his elbow. Club medical personnel said the ligament was sprained, and that rest and an ensuing pitch limit enabled him to throw without pain.

No matter whose diagnosis was correct, there was no question it led to one of the oddest seasons of his career.

"It was one of my better years for numbers," Ryan said.

And it was his worst year, at least by record.

He finished 8-16. Only three times had he lost as many games; never had he won so few since becoming a full-time starter.

Despite the record, he received a considerable number of Cy Young award votes. Murray Chass of the New York Times - calling Ryan's record "one of the most misleading in baseball history" - said Ryan pitched well enough to win the Cy Young. He finished fifth, tied with the New York Mets' Dwight Gooden, who went 15-7, nearly a reverse of Ryan' s record.

But Gooden wasn't even close to the rest of Ryan's numbers.

Ryan became the first pitcher to lead the majors in strikeouts (270) and earned-run average (tied with Toronto's Jimmy Key at 2.76) and not win the Cy Young. He also set - and still owns - a major league record for average strikeouts per nine innings for starters, 11.48, a record that astounded statisticians.

"We often get annoyed with the obsession people have with trivial statistics," said Steve Hirdt of the Elias Sports Bureau, the official statisticians of Major League Baseball. "How many wins Joe and Phil Niekro need to become the winningest brothers; how many times Don Baylor gets hit for the hit-by-pitch record; (Cal) Ripken trying to set a record (consecutive games played) just because he chooses to do it.

"But here was a genuine baseball achievement, striking out 111/2 batters a game, and Ryan gets absolutely zero recognition for it."

The record may have gone overlooked because of the odd set of circumstances surrounding his season.

Dick Wagner, the Astros' general manager, put Ryan on a pitch limit in 1987 at the suggestion of team physician Bill Bryan and trainer Dave Labossiere. They had concluded Ryan's elbow problems were caused by shoulder fatigue. After 125 or more pitches, they believed Ryan' s faltering delivery put unnecessary strain on his elbow.

The limit was supposed to be 100 pitches, Labossiere said. Ryan invariably pushed it as high as 115 or more, which still wasn't enough.

"Ryan hated it," Labossiere said.

The pitch limit meant he did not finish a game in 1987, the only time in his career as a starter he failed to do so.

The fact might have meant little, considering he finished only one game in 1986, when he was on the disabled list twice. But the pitch limit kept him out of the eighth inning in all but four of his 34 starts in 1987. He made it to the ninth once.

"It certainly had a bearing," Ryan said of the early exits, "because we were a club that scored late, if we scored at all. Either I came out of the games behind, or we lost it out of the bullpen."

Of Ryan's 34 starts, he had 10 no-decisions. The Astros went on to win eight of those games. By comparing the number of runs he gave up to the number of runs the Astros eventually scored, Ryan could have finished 17-12 under the best of circumstances.

He would have done even better had the Astros scored for him. He lost eight consecutive games from June 17-July 29, during which the Astros supported him with 13 runs. He gave up 19. The Astros scored two or fewer runs in 14 of his starts. He gave up a total of 27 earned runs in those 14 starts.

He was used to the lack of run production. But he was not used to the Astros' method of dealing with his age and health.

Wagner was the difference. He came from Cincinnati after the 1985 season, replacing Al Rosen. Ryan's problems with him mostly were a lack of communication, he said. Wagner put him on the disabled list in 1986 from July 28-Aug. 12 without asking Ryan's opinion about his sore elbow.

"I understand what Dick was trying to do," said Ryan, who already had gone on the disabled list once in 1986 for rest and noted that it didn't do any good, "but I didn't think he took the right approach. I know what's going on with my body more than anyone else."

Wagner surprised Ryan again in 1987, after his second start. He threw more than 135 pitches in his first two games without any problems. Then Wagner informed Ryan through manager Hal Lanier that he was to come out of games after he threw a certain amount of pitches, no matter what the situation.

Lanier told members of the media that the pitch limit was Wagner' s idea.

"I had nothing to do with it," Wagner said. "Lanier really buried me in the press. I was simply enforcing the advice of our medical personnel. They had a lot of evidence.

"Nolan is a workhorse and a gamer. He could throw 160 pitches if he needed, but then we'd be out a pitcher."

Ryan didn't think a limit was necessary.

"When I felt like I was losing it," he said, "I'd tell them. If somebody got on base and I didn't think I had anything left, I'd tell them to get the bullpen up. I wasn't going to be stubborn about it."

Ryan believed the pitch limit hurt the Astros' bullpen. Other than Dave Smith, who had 24 of the team's 33 saves, the Astros did not have much success with relievers. Ryan thought they were stretched too thin.

Ryan also made the case that he was better as games wore on, as he had been all of his career. On Sept. 8 against San Francisco, he struck out 16 Giants in eight innings, including 10 of the last 12 and the last five in a row. Chili Davis was so frustrated he broke his bat over his leg.

A few days after the San Francisco game, Wagner increased Ryan' s limit to 125.

Of course, an argument could be made that limit may have been the reason for Ryan's health and record-breaking season. Labossiere said Ryan's performance proved that the limit worked. Ryan didn't spend any time on the disabled list in 1987, even though Dr. Frank Jobe, one of the country's leading specialists in athletic injuries, had recommended surgery. Ryan also had the best strikeout ratio of his career.

Might the pitch limit have helped him stay healthy?

"Who's to dispute that?" Ryan said. "I can't say it wasn't the case. But he (Wagner) had no way of proving I couldn't have held up if we hadn't used it.

"My argument was that each and every game is different. You can' t make a hard-fast rule for all of them."

His argument must have had some effect. The pitch limit was gone by 1988, when he would throw four complete games.

The publicity over the pitch limit clearly was in favor of Ryan. The backlash in the media led to the change in policy, Labossiere said. But he and Wagner believe the limit, even for just one year, allowed Ryan to recover from the elbow problems and prolong his career.

"If I have another situation like it," Labossiere said, "I'll do the same thing."

He just won't have another Nolan Ryan.