A certain American League Wild Card Series pitting two storied rivals from the northeast figures to garner lots of attention this week.
But baseball purists from all corners – even those resentful of the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees – should still throw those clubs some genuine appreciation.
Boston and New York by far boast the strongest starting pitching depth in the pre-bye portion of a postseason that begins today. The Red Sox and Yankees are the only teams to be so bold as to outline a series rotation that doesn’t include a bullpen game.
Sure, fighting for a playoff spot dictated short hands within various rotations in the field. In peril of completing a staggering collapse, the Philadelphia Phillies started Zack Wheeler on Sunday, removing him from the equation to face the Atlanta Braves until a potential deciding National League Wild Card Game 3 on Thursday, when he’d be on short rest.
The Houston Astros needed to keep winning to stave off the Texas Rangers and win the AL West with a, gulp, 81-81 record. Ace Hunter Brown last pitched on Friday, meaning he, too, would not be in line to start until a possible deciding game against the Chicago White Sox.
In some ways, that should offer solace to Astros fans. But you’ve got to get there first, and a bullpen game represents the ultimate crapshoot, which is further magnified in a short elimination series.
Unless you embrace them, as the White Sox have.
“It’s more leaning into what we feel our strengths are,” general manager Chris Getz said. “That would be some guys that we’ve used in the bullpen. Have we been creative at times? Have we needed to be creative? Yeah, we feel like we’ve needed to be. But when you have some of the weapons that we do in our bullpen, finding as many opportunities as we can to pitch those particular players, I think it’s more than the overall state of our pitching.”
White Sox right-hander Sean Burke, the team’s innings leader at 172 1/3, agrees.
“We kind of joke around that we have 13 pitchers and don’t really have starters or bullpen,” he said.
Elite starting pitching typically serves as a main ingredient for championship contenders, but the game and circumstances can change. The NL Central champion Milwaukee Brewers built the best record in baseball with the fewest home runs among playoff teams, after all.
The Red Sox and Yankees had the luxury of setting up their rotations because they couldn’t catch Eastern division rival and AL top seed Tampa Bay and were spread far enough apart that New York wasn’t in danger of yielding home-field advantage.
Today brings Boston’s Payton Tolle against Cam Schlittler of New York, with Sonny Gray set to face Max Fried on Wednesday. Should a Game 3 be necessary Thursday, Red Sox lefty Ranger Suarez would meet Yankees righty Gerrit Cole.
Setting matchups in advance doesn’t guarantee their quality, of course. Numbers in equations fall out, leaving managers with urgent decisions that will either stave off or accelerate the end of the season.
“When you get to this part of the year, it’s all hands on deck,” Red Sox manager Chad Tracy said. “I think everybody’s pretty aware in the playoffs it’s high intent and winning moments and being aggressive and all those things.
“All of our guys that have been around understand that. They’re going to play their butts off, and we’re going to manage and try to do whatever we can to win the game.”
Tracy’s counterparts can attest, even if many might be more inclined to add “bullpen” before “game” in that last sentence.
“Bulk relief” may sound like “schmulk relief” to the purist this time of year, but in the name of advancing, it’s whatever works.
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