Cole Hamels pitched beautifully in last night's 6-2 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers, but many fans were left wondering why Charlie Manuel used Brett Myers with a four-run lead in the ninth inning.
Good question.
Manuel said it's because no four-run lead is safe at Citizens Bank Park. He also said he used Billy Wagner the same way in 2005. He's right. He pitched Wagner 15 times with leads of four or more runs in 2005. He also pitched him 12 times when they were trailing, with most of them coming after Wagner hadn't pitched in several days. So it appears Manuel has a precedent for this. He's not alone. Joe Torre had Mariano Rivera earn a two-inning save against the Phillies at the Bank on June 20 last season. He then had Rivera pitch the ninth the very next night in a 5-0 victory over the Phillies.
That Torre is craaaaazy.
But to me the real question is this: Is Myers being overworked?
Myers says no. Manuel says no.
Myers is on pace to make 80 relief appearances this season. He is on pace to throw 94 innings. But add those 94 innings to the 15 1/3 innings he threw as a starter and that's 109 1/3 innings. Too much? Too little? Just right?
Some things to think about:
- Salomon Torres (94), Matt Capps (85), Jon Rauch (85), Bobby Howry (84), Scott Proctor (83), Mike Stanton (82), Todd Coffey (81), Geoff Geary (81) and Chad Qualls (81) each made 80 or more appearances last season.
- According to Baseball Reference, a pitcher has made 79 or more appearances 110 times in baseball history. Fifty-five of them have happened from 2000 through 2006. That's exactly half.
- Looking through that list, it's difficult to say making that many relief appearances definitely hurts a pitcher's career. Anecdotally, pitchers like Jim Brower (2004), Paul Quantrill (2001-04), Rheal Cormier (2004), Billy Koch (2002) and Kelly Wunch (2000) experienced drops in production in the seasons following their heavy workload. But pitchers like Quantrill and Cormier were late in their careers. Others were not. Others like Eddie Guardado, Julian Tavarez, Oscar Villareal and Scott Eyre seems to be doing OK. (Eyre's current ERA notwithstanding.)
- People talk a lot about how Goose Gossage, Bruce Sutter and Rollie Fingers regularly threw 100 innings out of the bullpen. Gossage accomplished the feat four times, but never made more than 75 appearances in any of those seasons. Sutter did it five times, but never made more than 71 appearances. Fingers did it 10 times, but never made more than 78 appearances.
- Interestingly, Dave Righetti told me recently that his arm never felt the same after five years of regular use in the Yankees bullpen.
So what do we really know?
Statistically speaking, Myers certainly isn't the first relief pitcher to be used as often as he has been. But how many of those pitchers pitched more than one inning on occasion like Myers? I still think last night would have been the perfect spot for Geary. The only concern I have is that Myers has never pitched out of the bullpen before. He might feel fine now, but how will he feel come August?
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Sorry, Phillies fans. Wait until next year.
