This isn’t likely
your father’s brand of baseball, or anything I recognize as standard. No, “bullpenning” has become all the rage
this season, just like “launch angle” did last year.
In game one of
the NLCS, Milwaukee went with starter Gio Gonzalez for all of two innings. The Brewers went on to use another six
pitchers—including super reliever Josh Hader for three innings—in a 6-5 win
over the Dodgers. Let it be known that
LA topped out at six pitchers.
Let’s do some
quick math here. The two teams combined
for thirteen pitchers giving up eleven runs on nineteen hits. Now compare that to game seven of the
Pirates-Yankees 1960 World Series, which Pittsburgh won 10-9. Both teams used just nine pitchers giving up
nineteen runs on 24 hits. Oh, and the
World Series game took 2:36 to play compared to 4:02 for the NLCS contest.
The Brewers used
six pitchers the next day, only they couldn’t bring back Hader without risk of
injury or fatigue. Whatever the
Milwaukee strategy is, the Brewers’ pen gave up four runs, leading to a 4-3
loss. I’ll sit quietly now until someone
can explain to me what’s going on and how it makes for good baseball.
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