Metstradamus - Two Right Fielders At Turner Field West

 

By metstradamus | June 4, 2021 2:20 am

Taijuan Walker didn’t have his best stuff on Thursday. A little less pop, a little less control than we’ve gotten used to him having this season. No worries on that. Nobody not named Jacob deGrom can avoid games like that. But this leads into a decision that Luis Rojas made in the fifth inning that I want to explore a little bit.

All right, so David Peterson spit the bit on Wedensday, taxing the bullpen for eight innings. So fast forward to Thursday night. Down 3-0 (thanks in part to a Fernando Tatis home run which was in and out of Mason Williams’ glove), you have two runners on and two outs with Walker’s spot in the order up in the fifth inning, and Walker is at 81 pitches. So Rojas leaves Walker in to bat for himself. Walker, predictably, ended the inning with an out.

Now, if Rojas is making this move to save the bullpen, then it is inherent upon Rojas to actually save the bullpen. To make passing up on a chance for runs worth it, Walker had to go two more innings. But at 81 pitches in already, and without his best stuff, Walker would have had to have two quick innings to make the move worth it. As it was, Walker worked the fifth, threw 23 pitches to get up to 104, gave up another run on a wild pitch to make it 4-0, and then left the game. Brandon Drury couldn’t field a barehand and made a lousy throw to second to extend the inning, but it just shows you that there are too many variables to depend on getting short innings. To pass up a chance at more runs to save the bullpen one inning didn’t seem worth it to me.

Jun 3, 2021; San Diego, California, USA; San Diego Padres shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. (23) rounds the bases after hitting a two-run home run against the New York Mets during the third inning at Petco Park. Mandatory Credit: Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports

Now to be fair, the Mets are already short on the bench with Jonathan Villar nursing some hamstring issues, and there was no third catcher with Patrick Mazeika going down so you don’t have the flexibility to use him or Nido in that spot. So the only big hitter you have is Pete Alonso, who had a scheduled day off as per the cost of bringing him up without a rehab stint. And Rojas was fortunate enough to find a spot for Alonso to do some damage in the 6th.

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