April 12, 2019 -- It’s a sunny spring afternoon in the Atlanta suburbs. The ring of the bat, the smack of a ball in a glove, and the cheers of the parents mean baseball is back.

It’s the bottom of the first inning, and coach Tracy Bracken’s Braves -- a batch of 9-year-old Little Leaguers -- are on the field. At the end of the dugout, assistant coach Dane Lorio is logging each throw from the team’s young pitcher, tapping a button on an iPhone app called Pitch X.

Lorio says the players know he’s counting pitches, but all of them may not grasp why it’s being done.

Baseball is perhaps the most statistic-intensive major sport. Fans in the cheap seats and front-office executives in the major leagues alike obsess over batting averages, earned-run averages, and on-base percentages.

But the numbers Lorio keeps may be as important to a Little Leaguer’s future as strikeouts or velocity. The pitch count is now subject to strict rules that are meant to keep growing arms from needing major surgery down the road.

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