The Wild Card Zone in Major League Baseball Games

Many years ago, a Major League Baseball team would feel pretty confident if it had a good starting pitching rotation and a consistently effective closing relief pitcher.  And having one or two really dependable middle-relief pitchers would just be icing on the cake.  But nowadays, with the pressure to limit the number of pitches that starters can throw in a game...even to the point where a manager will sometimes pull a starter who is pitching a no-hitter (it happened with the Marlins earlier this season)...there has arisen a substantial portion of the game when the "big-money" starting pitchers have been yanked and that lineup of middle-relief pitchers comes into play...and this happens in the vast majority of games.  These pitchers usually don't exactly have the best records at keeping batters from reaching base...which is why they're middle relief, after all!  Yet they collectively play a crucial role in determining the outcome of games.  A starter is usually approaching the magic number of 100 pitches, unless of course he's having a career game, by around the sixth or seventh inning.  And even if the pitch count is lower, the manager is very sensitive to observe any signs of fatigue, reflected in pitch speed and accuracy...and of course whether or not the bases are being kept empty.  I've seen many games in which the starter was doing well and then ran into a little trouble in the 5th, 6th, or 7th innings and the manager, rather than see if he could get himself out of the inning, instead called upon a middle-relief pitcher with less of a reputation for effectiveness.  And too many times in these situations, the reliever would give up runs, with them often charged to the starter.  I've been suffering in recent seasons with my Florida teams Tampa Bay and Miami as I've seen leads disappear and losses ensue on a number of occasions when effective starters are replaced with less-capable relievers...

I've recently heard that pitchers throw warm-up pitches before each inning (up to 8 are allowed per inning)...and if there is any kind of delay, they're allowed more.  I wonder, though, how necessary these practice throws are and if they don't contribute to the starter's fatigue in later innings.  I heard the same viewpoint expressed by someone recently on a sports talk radio station, and then read an article echoing his viewpoint online...I wonder if it was the same person.  After all, the later you can keep your best pitchers in the game, while keeping the number of innings with middle-relievers to a minimum, your chances of winning should be greatly enhanced.  But I don't foresee any drastic changes concerning warm-up pitches anytime soon.  Instead, those middle-to-late innings will continue to be the "wild card zone" in games, when just about anything might happen...