Remember your birthday as a kid? It was freaking awesome.
You’d get a ton of new toys and you’d spend the next week trying to figure out just how much time you needed to spend with each one to create optimal fun.
Mike Matheny seems to be taking this approach with his bullpen. If you’ve got an arm, you’re coming in – no questions asked.
In the past three Cardinals wins, he’s made EIGHTEEN pitching changes!
Wednesday was the third consecutive win that the Cardinals deployed five relievers or more, and more than half the bullpen has at least warmed up during five consecutive games.
To secure a 4-2 victory against Milwaukee at Busch Stadium, Matheny used six relievers to collect 12 outs. Matheny has long maintained that to get a win the players must give everything they have, and in most of the wins this season Matheny has used almost everyone he has.
That’s from this AM’s Post-Dispatch.
And to Matheny’s credit, he seems to know that this isn’t a sustainable method of managing or winning baseball games.
The answer to pretty much every single gripe, complaint or criticism of any baseball team in April is always going to be ‘it’s early’. And it applies here for sure.
But it’s interesting to watch Matheny work his way through his trust issues with his bullpen, since it’s obvious that he’s not settled in on a comfortable pecking order.
Photo: Spoonlighting
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