Rob Rains Inside Baseball: Heavy Use Of Bullpen Could Be In Cards Postseason Plans Again

By Rob Rains

In their march to the world championship in the 2011 postseason, the Cardinals asked their bullpen to shoulder a heavier percentage of the workload than is normally the case in October.

It could happen again this year.

Former manager Tony La Russa went to his bullpen early, and often, in the Division Series, NLCS and the World Series two years ago – with positive results.

In those 18 games spread across the three series, the Cardinals only had one complete game from a starter – Chris Carpenter’s heroic effort in the game five win over the Phillies in the Division Series.

Only three other times in that postseason did a Cardinals starter work seven innings in a game. In 11 of the other 17 games the starter was out of the game before the sixth inning or earlier.

The model worked especially well in the Championship Series against the Brewers, where the bullpen actually combined to pitch more innings, 28 2/3, than the starters, 22 1/3, and compiled an ERA of 1.88, allowing just six earned runs. No starter in that series went deeper than five innings, and that happened only once. 

Over that entire postseason, the bullpen was asked to pitch 42 percent of the innings, and the starters combined to average exactly five innings per start.

While manager Mike Matheny will not be looking to repeat that scenario entirely, he does know going into this postseason that the performance of his bullpen has been one of the team’s strengths of late.

The bullpen also was a strength a year ago, but the setup Matheny relied on then – with Edward Mujica throwing the seventh, Mitchell Boggs the eighth and Jason Motte the ninth – will be completely different.

“Last year was such a great luxury to have a guy for the seventh, a guy for the eighth and a guy for the ninth,” Matheny said. “That was our formula, and we don’t necessarily have that right now. What we have is a lot of guys that we have faith in and we just want to put them in the best situation. 

“I’m real happy with the guys we have and how they’re handling their roles, and that’s what we’ve got to roll with.”

The exact makeup of the bullpen, and which starter will be moved out of the rotation and join the group, will be revealed over the next couple of days as the Cardinals work out at Busch Stadium in preparation for the best-of-five first round, where they will play the winner of the wild card game Tuesday night between the Reds and the Pirates.

The Cardinals could decide to keep either 11 or 12 pitchers, with the final spot likely to come down a choice between Mujica or left-hander Sam Freeman if they decide on a 12-man staff... [To continue reading and find out how you could win 2 playoff tickets click here]