There are times in a game when a manager must make a decision. The first one comes prior the game when he makes his rounds around the roster, determining the batting order and defensive alignment for the game. Is Kyle Schwarber going to be DHing today or will help be more useful grabbing his first baseman’s mitt and giving Alec Bohm a day off? Is this the day where Edmundo Sosa gets onto the field as a substitute for one of the infielders? This is one of the first of many that Don Mattingly has to make.
The next few are more inconsequential. What will he eat, which non uniform top will he wear in the dugout, simple, tedious decisions that really have no bearing on the game outside of whatever superstition he has about what lies ahead. He’ll know the starting pitcher well ahead of time, so that’s really nothing that needs to concern him outside of a possible need to scratch the starter due to injury.
One other thing that might be on his pregame checklist is a rundown of the bullpen members to determine who is available for the evening and who is down. Should one of those relievers throw for two or more consecutive games, chances are that he is not going to pitch the game that night. Rob Thomson had his own faults about him when it came to the actual managing of a baseball game, but his ability to back off of relievers when he had to and push when necessary was one of his strengths.
Mattingly is a near butcher when it comes to his bullpen. Not so much of his usage of any one pitcher in particular. This day and age of available data and information about each and every little thing about a player’s health dictates that they be smart about who is to be used on a given day and who is not. Gone are the days of Joe Torre signaling for Jeff Nelson and Mike Stanton every day in order to get out of jams. Instead, the manager of today’s game needs to make sure that he is using all members of his bullpen in order to maneuver the 27 outs he needs to accrue to win a game.
The way in which Mattingly has put wear and tear on the members of his bullpen is different. There isn’t any kind of statistic to track this, but rather more of a hunch and feeling that there is no manager in today’s game that gets his relievers warmed up only to not use them in a game more often than what Don Mattingly does. It’s not something that is just limited to one person noting it, it’s something that other people closer to the team have seen.
The Phillies have run their bullpen in a different way since Mattingly became interim manager in late April. Anecdotally, they have warmed up more relievers this season without using them in a game. Several of the team’s relievers attested to that dynamic but downplayed it. No one will blame the bullpen’s inconsistent performances on how it’s been managed.
But it’s worth wondering about.
I’m sure the players are going to downplay it now since the season is ongoing and no one wants to rock the boat, but constantly seeing someone warming in the bullpen, only to see them not appear in a game, it has to start to wear on a pitcher. It’s not the same as actual game usage as there is less stress in just warming up. However, it’s still a pitcher throwing and it’s still his getting used to pitching in live action. This late in the season, it looks like it is starting to cost the team dearly.
Jonathan Bowlan has struggled lately. Giving up runs in his previous four games prior to pitching on Thursday evening, his insertion into a tight game was somewhat surprising given the need for the Phillies to take the game. What was even more surprising was that Mattingly had Alex McFarlane warming up in the seventh inning, ready to come in if Aaron Nola ran into trouble. Since that trouble never arrived, McFarlane was then sat down in favor of Bowlan. However, as he continued through the eighth inning, Bowlan ended up needing to leave due to a groin injury. Tim Mayza finished the inning before Jhoan Duran finished the game, meaning McFarlane was heated up once again, only to not be used.
How often has this happened in the season under the watch of Don Mattingly?
Bowlan was someone he did this to earlier in the year. As one of the more reliable members of the bullpen for much of the season, he started gaining more and more chances to pitch in higher leverage situations. Therefore, he was warmed up again and again. Now, as the season winds down and Bowlan starts to lose steam, one has to wonder if the combination between his actual appearances on the mound this year and the number of times that he has been warmed up to not be actually used in the game (the baseball term for this is “dry humping”, but we will use a little more tact) has to be connected to his late season struggles. True, he’s never thrown this many innings in a season before, innings that have increasingly gone up in stress, but his manager has not helped him at all by continually making him throw even if he wasn’t going to appear in a game.
As previously stated, one of Rob Thomson’s strengths was that if a pitcher was down in his bullpen, he was down. He wasn’t going to pitch in the game, he wasn’t going to warm up, nothing. Once the Phillies were in the playoffs, the relievers looked fresher and more ready to perform when called upon. That has rarely, if ever, been the case under Mattingly. What we’re seeing instead is pitchers starting to get pushed to an extreme they have not been ready for. We can see that there are really only four, maybe five pitchers that Mattingly trusts – Duran, Bowlan, McFarlane, Jose Alvarado and maybe Tim Mayza. Constantly getting those guys up only to not use them in a game is not giving them the recovery time that they require. Other arms are going to have to step up and deliver as the season winds to a close.
Therein lies the rub. Mattingly only has a bit of trust in those five relievers, the other five of the staff be damned. Should he continue warming up and using the same guys, he’s going to have a problem getting to October baseball, let alone winning anything there. There is also the danger of pushing these guys closer to injury than they maybe would have if they were used in a more proper manner. Was the injury to Bowlan something that could have been avoided, letting his body heal properly by avoiding his getting heated up when he wasn’t going to come into a game in the first place? We’ll never know.
But please, Donnie.
There are important games coming.
Stop killing the relievers anymore than you already have.
