Sunday was a good day for starting pitchers. Ten of them ended the day with a W. In 15 games, that's an impressive ratio.

However, none of them put in a full, impressive day's work.

The closest was Detroit right-hander Edwin Jackson, who threw eight shutout innings against Baltimore before yielding the mound to Fernando Rodney, the Tigers's bearded and imposing closer.

That's not unusual. The complete game an endangered species. Pitchers like Zack Greinke, the Kansas phenom (above) who's pitched five complete games in 2009 is an anomaly. The next best is a six-way tie with two complete games.

But even guys like Jackson, workhorses who often take their teams deep into a game, are fading thanks to conservative pitch counts and complex bullpen strategies. He's averaged 6.6 innings in his last 10 starts, five of them wins. Four pitchers - Greinke, Roy Halladay, Kevin Millwood and CC Sabathia - are averaging at least 7.0 innings per start this season.

Most top-end starters are averaging at least six innings per outing, a good two-thirds days' work. And that's the minimum a starter should have to perform before being able to earn a W.

Unfortunately, baseball barely requires a half-day's labor - five innings - from starters for a W. That's just not enough.

On Sunday Milwaukee's Yovani Gallardo lasted into the sixth but managed just one out before being lifted, having allowed two runs. Yet because the Brewers scored five in the first three innings he was credited with the W. It was the fourth time in 10 starts that Gallardo failed to pitch six innings, and he earned victories in two of those outings.

Sorry. Not enough.

If I could take some white-out to the rule book, I'd require starters to go seven before getting the W. That's man-ball. In 1978, baseball's 10 winningest pitchers (plus any 20-game winners - remember them?) averaged 7.4 innings per outing. (As a side note: Mike Caldwell pitched 23 complete games that season.)

A decade later, the number was only negligibly less - 7.3 innings per outing.

By 1998, with the development of bullpen specialists, the starter's day had shortened to 6.7 innings among those same 10 winningst pitchers. And the number didn't change during the 2008 season.

My seven-inning rule would undoubtedly rile some human-rights activists, claiming it's physically and mentally cruel and unusual, or somesuch. Wimps. I'd settle for six innings at this juncture, reluctantly.

The five-inning rule coincides with the rule that if a game is called after five innings, it goes in the books as a completed game. Frankly, that rule should be changed, too. Five innings is like a date that ends at the appetizer. Or a book you stop reading halfway through.

It was fun but hardly fulfilling.

Changing the rule would not throw the stat book into a tizzy. As noted above, Gallardo would have been the only "winner" stripped of a W because he did not complete six innings.

It also would not have a dramatically adverse effect on any individual pitcher's pursuit of history. Very few are winning 20 games any more, and after Randy Johnson reaches the 300 milestone (it could happen Wednesday), our grandkids might be in the majors before another 300-gamer comes along - even if they shortened the requirement to three innings.

Raise the bar now and let's see pitchers earn their Ws.

AP photo