It has always made sense to me to pitch your best pitchers in must-win games. Whether that be a starting pitcher or a reliever, it seems like using the best available arm at all times maximizes your chances of winning.
But for some reason, seeing a starting pitcher enter the game in the middle or later innings almost never happens.
Past manager's outright refusal to think outside the box in this matter stems from a fear of being ostracized. They didn't want to do challenge what has become the norm in today's game.
However, last year Bruce Bochy went against the status quo. When the San Francisco Giants were on the verge of winning their third World Series championship in five years, Bochy went to Madison Bumgarner - who had pitched three days earlier - in the fifth inning and rode him the rest of the way.
In an age of extensive pitch counts, a Tommy John surgery epidemic and the ridiculous salaries for elite starting pitchers, no managers or front offices want to risk injury by overuse.
Except in the 2015 postseason. A big thanks to Bochy.
So far this October, we have seen more aces pitching in relief than in recent memory.
In Game 4 of the American League Division Series between the Toronto Blue Jays and Texas Rangers, Toronto manager John Gibbons brought in his best starting pitcher, David Price, with two outs in the fifth inning. With a six run lead.
Too far? Unnecessary? Bad decision?
Maybe, but trailing 2-1 in the series and not being able to afford a loss, you can't really blame a manager for being too careful. Pretend the Rangers had mounted a rally and come back to win, then what?
Gibbons would have had his best pitcher - one of baseball's premier starters and someone whom the Jays traded at the deadline for a deep package of top prospects - sitting in the dugout while the season ended.
"You know what, things happen fast," Gibbons said, via Shi Dividi of SportsNet. "I’ve watched enough baseball games, been involved in enough that sometimes the only chance you’ve got to win is to keep the team from coming back in those lopsided games. At that point, too, they started to hold our offense in check."
"We scored a lot early. The other pitcher was pretty good, which you see a lot, but you score a lot of runs early, all of a sudden you dry up. Next thing you know a team climbs back, so that’s basically what it was."
What happened was Gibbons understood that there was too much on the line to worry about saving pitching for Game 5. Because in Major League Baseball, nothing is guaranteed.
Said R.A Dickey, who started the game and fell one out short of reaching the minimum five innings to earn the victory on the mound, after the game: "We won and we’re going back to Toronto with a chance."
Again, it is impossible to say that the Blue Jays were sure to win the game with Dickey and the rest of the bullpen recording outs. Especially since the Toronto relieving corps has been a question mark, sans closer Roberto Osuna.
So, Price pitched three innings out of the 'pen.
Three short days after Gibbons had to explain himself, another ace's availability for a decisive Game 5 was in question.
This time in the form of Clayton Kershaw, the best pitcher in baseball, who two days earlier threw seven innings on short rest. Los Angeles Dodgers manager Don Mattingly was asked whether he would consider bringing in Kershaw to relieve at any point in the game.
Instead of immediately dismissing the idea - which would definitely not be surprising - Mattingly admitted that they had internally discussed the idea.
“He’s here,” Mattingly said of Kershaw, via JP Hoornstra of the Los Angeles Daily News. “I’m not sure what we’ll do with him. (And) We’ve talked to him about pitching today."
A.J. Ellis, Kershaw's personal catcher and best friend on the team, shed some light on the topic as well.
"It’s Game 5, it’s all hands on deck," Ellis said, per Hoornstra. "Everybody needs to be spiked up and ready to go because there’s no excuses and there’s no - you can’t have any regrets and what-ifs. We’ve just got to be ready to go.”
In the opposing dugout, New York Mets manager Terry Collins took that thinking to process. After Jacob deGrom had used up all his bullets over the course of six excellent innings, Collins had a decision to make.
He knew he had closer Jeurys Familia, whose 43 regular season saves were third-most in baseball, for at most two innings. But for the seventh, he had several options.
Not surprisingly, he opted to go with his best. As the TBS broadcast went to a commercial, viewers were left with the image of 21-year-old Noah Syndergaard and his flowing blonde hair leaving the bullpen.
"There was a point in the game where one of the things [Mets pitching coach] Dan (Warthen) said to me was, 'Look, the middle of their lineup, we need to have somebody with power to get through that part,' " Collins told Adam Rubin of ESPN.com. "And I said, 'Do you think the kid can handle it?' And he said, 'By all means.' So he talked me into it. We brought him in the seventh inning, and he was about as good as you can possibly ask for in that spot."
Because in games that you can't afford to lose, it only makes sense to put your best pitcher in the game, regardless of how much rest he has had or how much - or how little - experience he has pitching in relief.
And it's not only that you are bringing a starter to relieve just to do it, but sometimes it just works out and it only makes sense to go that route.
Lets take the Mets and Jays, for example. For the Mets, they had deGrom and Syndergaard on full rest with no future games to plan for.
It wouldn't have even been out of the question to bring in deGrom to pitch in the end of Game 4. Even though the Mets were losing, had they brought in deGrom - he was seen warming up in the bullpen on multiple occasions - they would have been able to give deGrom a couple of innings then and give Syndergaard as many as possible back in L.A.
It's all about allocating resources efficiently and appropriately. And in Toronto's situation, pretend they did not use Price in Game 4 and still managed to win.
Then, in Game 5, they would have likely given the ball to Price to start, with Marcus Stroman providing relief if necessary.
The way Gibbons set it up, he gave Price three innings, Stroman the start in the winner-take-all Game 5, and then had Price to use once again out of the bullpen if it came to it.
The thing that some fans and analysts don't take into account is adrenaline. Everyone is worried about how many pitches so-and-so threw and how many days of rest he has had, but when the greatest pitchers in the game take the mound, they have the uncanny ability to block all of that out. Fatigue, soreness, everything. They are just focused on pitching and getting outs.
“I wasn’t thinking about innings or pitch count," Bumgarner said after he tossed five innings of scoreless ball against the Royals in Game 7 last year. "I was just thinking about getting outs, getting outs, until I couldn’t get them anymore and we needed someone else."
Talk and talk all you want about how bringing in starting pitchers to close out games is a risky move or a health concern.
When the biggest games are on the line, you turn to your biggest pitchers to execute the biggest pitches.
Ponder this; in the most pivotal moment of the season, who would you rather have on the mound: a gritty ace who has proven throughout his career that he can get big outs, or a quirky relief pitcher who doesn't boast much of a track record of any kind?
This writer doesn't know about you, but rest, pitch count or anything else doesn't matter. In a playoff game where your team has to win to move on, your's truly is going with the best pitcher available every day of the week.
Just like Bochy did in Game 7 last year.