Ron Washington either doesn't have firm convictions or he hasn't been true to those convictions. Anyway, his handling of the Rangers' bullpen could come back to bite them in the butt.
First there was Game 3 of their ALDS against the Rays. Wash seemed to panic a bit, bringing in Neftali Feliz in the eighth inning, then having to go with Dustin Nippert in the ninth. That was a losing proposition.
After getting 40 saves during the season, Feliz still doesn't have one in the postseason.
By the way, as well as Feliz pitched this year, his major league "rookie" record seems tainted to me because the definition of a rookie pitcher is based on innings rather than appearances. That makes it so a starting pitcher could arrive in the majors during September and use up his innings limit, where a reliever can spend nearly half the season and still qualify as a rookie the next year.
Anyway, I think Washington did the right thing getting Feliz into a game in a non-save situation in the ALDS to have postseason experience. But I'm not sure he needed to struggle through another non-save situation today. He needs to pitch in a closer's role.
OK, I digress. Anyway, after going short (10 pitchers) during the ALDS, Washington, or maybe Jon Daniels and Nolan Ryan, did the right thing by jettisoning Nippert and replacing him with two left-handers who will be useful at Yankee Stadium. Darren Oliver has run out of gas each of the last two years. I'm not sure Clay Rapada is the right lefty to add. Matt Harrison has more experience, and there probably was a reason Rapada spent the entire season at Oklahoma City. I'm also not sure when the majors loosened their rules so that virtually anyone can be on the postseason roster even if he joined the team after th August 31 deadline. The Yankees always used to add a veteran, somebody like Hector "Skinny" Brown or Suitcase Simpson, down the stretch even knowing that they couldn't use that player in the postseason.
Back to Rapada. He redeemed himself today by striking out Marcus Thames in a non-favorable matchup when he could have turned a 7-2 game into 7-5.
This brings me back to my main point. One of the first questions I asked Washington in March 2007 in Surprise, Ariz., when he was a new major league manager, was whether he would run his bullpen based on lefty-righty matchups. He was adamant that he wouldn't just go by that book. So in Friday night's game, after lefty Oliver failed, Wash went to righty Darren O'Day against one right-handed batter -- for one pitch. Then it was Rapada for one lefty batter -- for one pitch. Derek Holland finally came in and got out of that awful half-inning. So much for not going by the book.
The manager did get through a soft portion of Texas' rotation (C.J. Wilson and Colby Lewis are pretty much 6- or 7-inning starters) with the bullpen in much better shape than the Yankees'. That effect will be lessened somewhat with a day off. But if Cliff Lee can go eight or nine innings deep, and the Rangers can get Andy Pettitte, whose complete games are rare these days, that bullpen edge can grow in the Rangers' favor again. That edge could stay even though neither Game 4 starter, Tommy Hunter or the Yankees' A.J. Burnett, could be expected to go more than six or seven innings.
However, Washington could fritter away that advantage by going too much left-right-left or misusing Feliz.
There are problems inherent with facing the Yankees. The lineup is so deep top to bottom, and so capable of waiting out pitchers, that it puts extreme pressure on opponents. For example, in the current series, the longer it goes, the more pitches Texas throws and the more opportunities that there are up and down the lineup, the more likely it is that Mark Teixeira or Alex Rodriguez would break out of their slumps.
I still like the Rangers in six. If the series goes to seven games, I'm just afraid that ticking time bomb would work in New York's favor.
Another somewhat related thought: The first two games, especially the eighth inning for Game 1, were interminable. One way to cut down the excessive time of American League games would be to ditch the designated hitter. It's not needed for either of the reasons cited when it arrived in 1973 (declining offense and a place for star players to make a transition into the retirement). Having a pitcher around to make more frequent, but not automatic, outs wouldn't hurt. Those same pitchers could have a breather against their counterparts that they could allow them to throw fewer pitches and be fresher for the batters who really could hurt them.
Just a thought. A darn good one at that.
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