CC Sabathia threw 130 pitches Monday night in shutting down Houston. It was his fifth complete game in nine starts since joining Milwaukee in July.

The start prompted speculation among some national media members that manager Ned Yost was going to “use up” the former Cleveland star pitcher, with Fox Sports reporter Ken Rosenthal saying the idea of throwing Sabathia back in the ninth-inning of a game the Brewers led 9-2 “appeared borderline criminal.”

What has baseball come to? Sure, it makes sense to coddle younger arms a bit when they are just starting out and repeated overuse is definitely risky. But this is a veteran player who has been in playoff races before and would hopefully know enough to say something if he felt as though the extra pitches would do him harm.

From a fan’s standpoint it’s actually kind of refreshing to see Sabathia become somewhat of a throwback to the old days when pitchers used to try and finish what they started. A half-dozen starts throwing between 120 and 130 pitches not only isn’t going to kill Sabathia, but it’s going to save the Brewers’ bullpen for the late-season run to the playoffs.

Rental player or not, Yost told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, he would not risk a player’s future to win now.

“Never once did he labor,” Yost told the paper. “You have to understand the anatomy of what’s going on in the game. He’s averaging 13.7 pitches per inning, which is the seventh-lowest in baseball. Where guys get in touble is with 20-, 25- and 30-pitch innings. CC has none of those.”

Time for the national pundits to relax a little bit on this one.