Craig Counsell and Will Venable trusted their bullpens on Saturday with similar results.
Counsell watched his Chicago Cubs bullpen blow a late 5-0 lead in an 8-6 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, while Venable watched the White Sox 'pen lose 4-1 to the Detroit Tigers on a bullpen day scripted because of the lack of a fifth starter.
The Sox bullpen didn't perform any better on Sunday, blowing leads in the ninth and 10th innings of a 5-4 loss to get swept in Detroit and finish 1-5 on the road trip.
Venable and Counsell are no different from every other manager in baseball who is heavily reliant on multiple relievers to do the job on any given day. The average number of pitchers a team uses per game is 4.23, and has been above 4.11 since 2015.
It's not going backward any time soon, as starters' pitch counts decrease and the average velocity of relievers increases.
Counsell watched his Chicago Cubs bullpen blow a late 5-0 lead in an 8-6 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays, while Venable watched the White Sox 'pen lose 4-1 to the Detroit Tigers on a bullpen day scripted because of the lack of a fifth starter.
The Sox bullpen didn't perform any better on Sunday, blowing leads in the ninth and 10th innings of a 5-4 loss to get swept in Detroit and finish 1-5 on the road trip.
Venable and Counsell are no different from every other manager in baseball who is heavily reliant on multiple relievers to do the job on any given day. The average number of pitchers a team uses per game is 4.23, and has been above 4.11 since 2015.
It's not going backward any time soon, as starters' pitch counts decrease and the average velocity of relievers increases.
4 months ago
