2023 StL Game #88: Friday, July 7 at White Sox

Bling…….exactly and it will not happen. Get ready for a load of average to POOR baseball.

Arguing over who Ollie uses out of the pen is almost beside the point. When you score 7 runs on 15 hits you should win. This is one of the worst pitching staffs in the history of Cardinal baseball.

When you go into a sword fight with a weapon made out of paper mache you are going to lose. Herzog, LaRussa, Torre, or any other manager couldn’t win with this garbage can full of pitchers we have. The front office should be embarrassed.

“Not defending, but pointing out that at least three key relievers were supposedly unavailable Friday night – Hicks, Gallegos and Stratton. So there was almost nobody left to pitch. Just Thompson and Hudson, I think. In fact, they ended up having to use Stratton at the end.”

I feel like you’re making my point for me there, Brian. Stratton was “unavailable.” Unless he was really needed. In other words, he was available but Ollie waited much too long to use him. Anyway, if Marmol truly had to use Leahy (which of course he didn’t) then he could and should have used him when the score was 5-1, not 7-6.

————————————–

“Now, one could back up from there and question usage in prior games that made them unavailable… Because the starters are not going deep, a lot of pressure has been put on the pen and it is not going well.”

Cardinal starters are going as deep as other teams’ starters, so that’s no excuse for management or Marmol whining about “running out of relievers.” Only four teams’ starters are going meaningfully farther into games than the Birds’ starters: Twins, Rangers, Astros, and Mariners. On the other hand there’s eight teams with rotations averaging less than five innings per start: Tigers, Frisco, Rockies, Reds, Red Sox, Royals, Rays, and A’s (who are getting exactly what they deserve after that moronic Murphy trade).

The other 18 teams are all getting between 5 and 5.5 innings per start, and the Birds are just a smidge above 5 1/4. But one reason why there’s a periodic innings crush in the bullpen is that the manager refuses to deploy a longman/swingman to eat chunks of 4-5 innings when necessary. Even though he’s had converted starters like Woodford and Matz at his disposal, Marmol has ignored their ability to toss 60, 70 pitches or more, and instead used them as 1-2 inning guys.

Funny thing is, Marmol has addressed this matter. When asked by a reporter a couple months back why he didn’t deploy anyone in the pen as a conventional longman, Marmol replied that he had “eight relievers who he trusted in any role.” So we see that not only is he rotten at math (you can’t cover the innings shortfall with 1-2 inning relievers if you repeatedly pull your starters after 5 innings or so) but he’s also rotten at Sports Psychology.

Because every single retired reliever will tell you that relievers are at their best when they have a defined role within the bullpen. Maybe it shouldn’t be that way, but that’s how it is. And Marmol jerking guys around in ill-defined roles is undermining the bullpen, we can have no doubt. Heck, just in the past month or so we’ve seen Gallegos used as (1)Closer, then three days later the (2)7th inning guy, then soon after that the (3)8th inning setup arm, and then several days ago he came in with the Cards losing in the 8th inning — a (4)low-leverage modified mopup situation. So, four different roles in one month. For your best relief pitcher.

That’s one of the things a bad manager does. He over-experiments, as though players were ABPA cards, which they ain’t. And boy howdy does Ollie love to tinker. With the defensive positions, with the lineup slots, and with the bullpen roles — although he’d probably say something profoundly inane like “there are no bullpen roles, other than pitcher.”

Anyway I’m in danger of over-ranting. The man’s record speaks for itself. Especially this year.