Bullpenning sickness spreads to Philly

With modern MLB managers running teams as if they were accountants, it was only a matter of time before it blew up in their face.

Clever bullpen management has always been a part of baseball. But whereas previous generations would get a feel for their guys, talk to them, watch them warming up, feel them out to see if they had the stuff today or not, the past two decades have seen a slow slide towards spreadsheet-dominated coaching.

When it works, the manager looks like a savant. But when the wheels come off, the manager has to look for someone else to blame. That’s how accountancy works. Accountants insist that workers get fired to balance the books, just as long as it isn’t the accountant who loses their job.

On Wednesday night against the Rangers, Zack Wheeler had the stuff. He was throwing a marvellous game. He struck out seven hitters in seven and two-thirds innings of a 0-0 game. And then came the visit. Joe Girardi walked out to the mound and took his ace off the board. If you are pitch-counting, Wheeler had thrown 78 balls. Not an inordinate amount by any standards, but probably above a pre-determined total that Girardi had in mind.

The game went to ten innings and the Phillies lost. Of course, there is no guarantee that the outcome would have been any different had Wheeler been left in to finish the eighth, or even to complete the game. He would have likely thrown under 100 pitches even had he gone the entire ten innings. The real question is why? Why do you take out a pitcher who is on such great form? What part of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” do you not understand?

But doubt can always be raised about a situation like that, where the game was tight and the key element may not have been the pitching change. The same can’t be said for the following night.

Joe Girardi is nothing if not persistent. With Aaron Nola having a barnstormer of a night, he threw seven, giving up three hits and one run. He left the game sitting on a 7-1 lead. Nola’s pitch count was at least high, let’s give that one to Girardi. He had thrown 101 pitches and it was time to hand the ball over to a closer. James Norwood was not the guy, though.

The Mets simply teed off of Norwood as if it were batting practice. And a manager who likes to work his bullpen should have been on top of that. There should have been two guys working in the pen from the eighth inning on. But not Joe. By the time it dawned on him to bring in Corey Knebel, there was precious little to save.

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It is like we have all misunderstood Girardi. He isn’t a bullpen-style manager at all. It turns out that he is simply an accountant, nothing more. He will let a pitcher throw a certain number of pitches, come what may, and then they get yanked. When Wheeler was doing well? Gone. Norwood is doing poorly? Leave him. You would expect a baseball coach to have some feel for the game. But no.

After the Mets mounted what turned out to be a seven-run comeback in the ninth inning to win 8-7, Girardi even had the temerity to blame the loss on the umpires! Now, I am no fan of the current crop of MLB umpires, but this loss was a failure to manage bullpen talent for even one inning. Nola’s hard work was undone by a lack of care or even understanding by the Phillies manager. Situational baseball is not just about intentional walks, steals, and bunts. It is about having a feel for when the other team has a bead on your guy. Sometimes, it is simply not your night. And as a player, you have to hope that your coach can see it long before you do.