The Pen Is Mightier

Finally, teams are using their bullpens correctly.  All it took was one of the biggest comebacks in postseason history.

On Thursday, October 16th, the Tampa Bay Rays allowed the Boston Red Sox to recover from a seven run deficit and, having been within seven outs of a World Series berth, lost a disheartening game five.  Between the start of the seventh inning and the last of the ninth, Rays manager Joe Maddon used three relievers, Dan Wheeler, Grant Balfour, and J.P. Howell, who allowed eight combined runs.  On the same night, in the opposing dugout, Red Sox manager Terry Francona, brought in his closer, Jonathan Papelbon, to shut the door on a Rays rally in the seventh inning.  Flash forward three days to the evening of October 19th and the deciding Game 7 of the ALCS.  Rays’ starter Matt Garza having pitched seven innings and having allowed one run off of two hitsgives way to the bullpen.  Maddon rolls through his bullpen like Mad Men’s Don Draper tears through scotch and cigarettes throughout the work day.  He uses four pitchers–Garza, Wheeler, Howell, and Chad Bradford–before making his way to rookie sensation David Price.  Price records a big strike out of J.D. Drew and then shuts the door on the World Series hopes of the Sox in the ninth.

Jump ahead in time once more to the evening of October 23rd, Game 2 of the World Series.  Trailing the series one game to none, Tampa’s starter James Shields has worked himself into a sixth inning jam as the Phillies’ Greg Dobbs singles Shane Victorino to third.  Maddon doesn’t hesitate.  He uses right-hander Dan Wheeler, who, depending on the health of Troy Percival, shuttled between the roles of set-up man and closer throughout the season, to match up against the righty bats of Pedro Feliz, Carlos Ruiz, Jimmy Rollins, and Jason Werth.  When left-handed batter Chase Utley strolls to the plate in the top of the seventh, Maddon once again calls on Price, who pitches two and a third innings to nail down the first World Series victory in the history of the Rays franchise.

Joe Maddon and Terry Francona must be Seamheads readers.  At the beginning of the season, I wrote a column with the premise that the increased specialization of bullpens would eventually cause problems for managers.  Basically, the question was why save your best available pitcher for the ninth inning when the decisive moment in the game came in the seventh?  Take the baseball videogames released in recent memory as an example.  Nowadays, to set a rotation, one must not only identify the five starters but also relegate every pitcher to the role of either long or middle relief, set-up man, or closer.  Fifteen years ago, in Bases Loaded and RBI Baseball for the original Nintendo, none of those roles were options.  You had starters, characters with a low ERA and high stamina attributes, and you had everyone else.  Nobody ever lost a game of Bases Loaded 2 because he or she didn’t go to the best pitcher in the bullpen.

Look at Goose Gossage and Bruce Sutter, who both played during the era of fluid bullpens.  Over his career, Gossage recorded 310 total saves.  Of those 310, approximately one third of them (124) came from more than two innings of work.  About ten percent of his saves (33) were after 3 or more innings.  Similarly, of Sutter’s 300 saves, he retired six or more batters 129 times and nine or more batters 14 times.  Compare those numbers with Mariano Rivera, the greatest closer of the modern era.  Over the course of his career, Rivera totaled 482 saves.  However, he went two or more innings only ten of those 482 times.  The longest outing Jonathan Papelbon has ever had in recording a save was 1.2 innings.  During the time of Sutter and Gossage, they would enter the game in a crucial moment, no matter the inning, and remain in the game until it ended.

While specializing the bullpen allows a manager to keep his staff fresh and consistent over a full 162 game schedule, reliance upon such limited roles can kill a team in the postseason.  In Game 5 of the ALCS, Maddon followed the specialized game plan to a T, bringing pitchers in according to their roles and not their match-ups.  The Rays almost lost the series as a result.  Conversely, in that same game, Francona went to Papelbon, who rarely records more than three outs, in the seventh, because he refused to end the season with his best pitcher sitting on the bench.

Between that and Game 7 of the ALCS, Maddon seems to have realized the folly of his actions.  In his last two appearances, David Price has pitched a total of 3.2 innings in relief.  In those 3.2 innings, he has allowed two hits, one earned run, and struck out five.  He has also closed out both games and provided the Rays with two victories.  Like the advent of the machine gun, Price has provided Maddon and the Rays, whose bullpen previously seemed more like an 1850s derringer, with a weapon that could irrevocably alter the state of baseball in Tampa Bay.  However, in a seriesthat will inevitably hinge upon the performance of the bullpen, Maddon must use Price appropriately.  He cannot wait for the ninth to unleash his heavy artillery.  By then, the battle may well be decided.  For Tampa Bay, the stretch of Philadelphia’s lineup that spans from Chase Utley to Shane Victorino might as well be Waterloo.