No holding back.

Whenever Joe thinks of pitch counts, Joe thinks of one way baseball has been ruined. You know the drill: A starting pitcher is humming along with a good game and gets pulled for no good reason other than he’s thrown 90 pitches or so.

Time to bring in some two-bit reliever in the eighth inning to cough up the lead!

(Joe can only imagine a baseball manager walking up to Bob Gibson on the mound, saying, “OK Bob, I know you have a three-hitter going but you’ve thrown 85 pitches. You’re done. … ” … “Daddy, why is that baseball man sleeping on his back near the pitcher’s mound?”)

So like an old school baseball manager, Bucs coach Bucco Bruce Arians doesn’t believe in pitch counts. Or limiting the snaps for foot-rubbing tight end Rob Gronkowski.

The future Hall of Famer came to the Bucs in an offseason trade. Gronkowski had retired because he was so physically beaten up from the game. So when the Bucs acquired him, giving them the deepest trio of tight ends in the game, a commonly held belief was that Gronk would be somewhat limited so as not to chase the guy from the game again with more injuries.

Ain’t gonna happen, said Arians yesterday. And Gronk is happy to hear it.

“We’ll play every game to win – whatever that takes,” Arians said. “We can’t worry about December in September. The load – we’ve got a lot of guys, so we can manage that as far as every game. We’re going to play every single game to win, so if that means he plays 50 plays or 30 plays, we’ll see.”

Gronk said he knows no other way to play football than all out, not part-time. In fact, he seemed confused by the suggestion he should be on a pitch count.

“I will play the whole entire game if I have to,” Gronk said. “It’s up to the coaches with the amount of playing time I get. I just listen to my coach. If he puts me in; he puts me in. If he takes me out; he takes me out.

“It’s up to me whenever I am in there to go make the plays. As of right now that’s how it is in training camp. My mentality is, if I have to play the whole entire game I will play the whole entire game. I don’t see why that would be a problem.”

Joe initially thought Gronk would be part-time for his health reasons. The more Joe thought about it, it’s all or nothing this year.

Besides, Gronk’s current contract runs out after this season. And even if healthy, he may want to go elsewhere for more money (Bucs are expected to be shaving salaries to meet the expected lower cap in 2021) or just may say he’s had enough football and go back to his other business ventures and rasslin.’

So use him if you got him. And the way Gronk can also block, why keep him on the sidelines? With Gronk, there may no be a tomorrow.