One thing that becomes abundantly clear in the postseason is which pitchers are trusted most by their managers. That’s why you see starters throwing on short rest, or bullpen relievers working multiple games in a row, or starters coming out of the bullpen when outs absolutely have to be recorded.
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It’s about trust.
That’s why St. Louis manager Mike Matheny tabbed veteran John Lackey to start Game 4 of the NLDS for the Cardinals, with his team trailing in the series, 2-1. It’s why Dodgers manager Don Mattingly went with Clayton Kershaw in Game 4 against the Mets, facing the same win-or-go-home situation in his team’s NLDS.
“When the manager makes those decisions about bringing guys back on short rest,” MLB Network analyst Joe Magrane told Sporting News, “it’s not so much how they think their arm is going to bounce back, it’s whether this guy has his best stuff or not his best stuff, does he have the competitive instincts, the heart, to where he’s going to trust him as someone who’s going to battle and get him some innings before he has to start making moves to the bullpen?”
Managers would rather place all their postseason hopes on a guy they trust who’s in a less-than-optimal situation — short rest, unfamiliar role or whatever the case may be — than a guy he doesn’t trust. And that’s the flip side.
Managers don’t trust some pitchers as much as others. The playoffs open that curtain.
They’ll never admit that, of course. No manager is ever going to say, “I just don’t trust that guy is good enough, either physically or mentally, to put him in that unbelievably important situation if I have any sort of secondary option.” Because one day there will be no secondary option, and that manager might actually have to use that pitcher, and he wants that pitcher to believe the manager has the utmost confidence in him.
But that’s the truth, as proven by the decisions managers make.
Look at Matheny’s action, for example. He went with Lackey, a veteran pitcher a few days short of his 37th birthday, on three days rest after his brilliant 86-pich Game 1 performance (7 1/3 shutout innings). In the regular season, Lackey had a 2.77 ERA (and 3.57 FIP) in 33 starts covering 218 innings (the most he’d thrown since he was 28).
Matheny went with Lackey — who hadn’t pitched on three days rest since 2005, by the way — instead of other viable options. Lance Lynn has been a mainstay in the St. Louis rotation the past four years. The right-hander has a 3.38 ERA in 132 regular-season games (126 starts) since 2012, but a 4.83 ERA in the postseason in that same span (seven starts, seven relief appearances). In the 2015 regular season, Lynn had a similar ERA (3.03 to 2.77) and he had a better FIP than Lackey (3.44 to 3.57).
But Lynn threw just one inning against the Cubs, in relief in Game 2. Those 24 pitches were basically a glorified side session, and certainly were not a reason he wouldn’t have been ready for Game 4. Matheny could have gone with Tyler Lyons, the lefty who threw seven shutout innings in a September 30 win in Pittsburgh that clinched the NL Central. Lyons hadn’t thrown at all in the NLDS, so he was ready (though maybe too rested?).
Instead, Matheny went with Lackey. And let’s be clear: this isn’t about saying that Matheny was wrong, though the results weren’t what he was hoping for (Lackey gave up four runs in three innings before he was removed from the game, and the Cardinals wound up losing, 6-4). Far from it.
This is just pointing out that Matheny trusted his veteran more than his other options.
“Lackey obviously has a tremendous reputation as being an outstanding postseason pitcher, outstanding competitor, someone that’s not going to scare,” Magrane said. “There’s a trust factor there.”
It’s not only about going with the postseason track record. Kershaw has had well-publicized issues in his hit-and-miss postseason career.
Heading into that short-rest Game 4 start, he’d had four playoff starts with two or fewer runs allowed and three with five or more runs allowed. But this is a guy with three career Cy Young awards and a 1.93 ERA over his past three regular-season starts, a guy who struck out 301 batters during the 2015 regular season.
You roll the dice with a guy like that. Every time.
And the trust factor isn’t just about starters, of course. That’s how managers construct their bullpen plans, too. That’s why Randy Johnson famously made three pressure-packed relief appearances in his Hall of Fame career as a Cy Young-winning starter.
When the season was on the line, the ball was in his hands.
“Because of the finality, you’re stretching guys out and often times, really just trying to get the absolute most out of them,” Magrane said. “To where it is a completely different mindset than managing a bullpen in the regular season.”
That’s a lesson some managers learn the hard way. No Nationals fan will ever forget then-manager Matt Williams’ bullpen usage in Game 4 of the 2014 NLDS.
That’s why, in Game 5 of the NLDS between the Mets and Dodgers, New York manager Terry Collins went with a bullpen combo that would have been unthinkable in the regular season. After starter Jacob deGrom powered through the sixth inning of a physically taxing start, Collins chose to use a rookie who hadn’t made a relief appearance all season.
Why? Because Noah Syndergaard throws 100 mph, that’s why.
Collins could have gone with setup man Tyler Clippard, who had thrown just eight pitches since Game 1. He could have gone with Addison Reed, who hadn’t pitched since Game 3. He had other options, too. But he chose Syndergaard, the 23-year-old rookie who has an overpowering fastball that limited the Dodgers to one run in six innings in Game 2 before he faltered in the seventh.
Because power.
After Syndergaard struck out two in his scoreless inning of relief, Collins went to his closer, Jeurys Familia, in the eighth inning. With the season on the line, Collins asked his closer to do something he’d never before asked of his closer—get the final six outs of the game. Why did he do that? Because he trusted Familia more than anyone else in his bullpen.
And Familia, one of baseball’s elite closers, rewarded that trust by closing out the series.
Managing a bullpen in the regular season is complicated, as the more critical fans for any team love to scream about on social media and talk radio. Pitchers have to be rested. Pitchers have to be used. Junk-ballers have to be tried. Rookies have to be given opportunities. It’s a long, long season. In the postseason, though?
“A lot of that stuff goes out the window and it becomes more about going with power and trying to get that person to go as long as he can,” Magrane said. “Just based on the finality of the season.”
Sometimes, these decisions based on trust work out—Collins in Game 5, Mattingly in Game 4—and sometimes they don’t—Matheny in Game 4. But those decisions always reveal what a manager really thinks about the pitchers on his staff.
