Why Even Have a Bullpen?

Of course, it gets worse before it gets better. The Tribe lost 2-1 in the 10th inning yesterday in Minnesota after Rafael Perez gave up consecutive singles (all shots) to the 9th, 10th, and 11th batters that he faced. One might ask, why leave Perez in to face that 11th batter? Your guess is as good as ours, which is that Eric Wedge is retarded. Perez, a set-up man, usually pitches one, no more than two, innings. When Brendan Harris, then Jason Kubel, hit hard singles off of him to put runners at first and second, he had faced 10 batters, having retired six of them. Seemed like an honest days work for old Raffy at that point. It sure looked like time to bring in Jensen Lewis who’d been warming up in the bullpen. In fact, the entire bullpen should have been available with Cliff Lee, Jake Westbrook, and Paul Byrd all turning in solid (7+ inning) starts for the series. With the day off today, there was even less of a need to preserve arms. Justin Morneau, the Twins best hitter, 2006 AL MVP, and one of the best hitters in baseball was up next. It might be that Morneau was 0 for his career against Perez, who, in fairness to Wedge, had struck Morneau out in the eighth inning. Even so, Perez had already pitched beyond his normal game day workload and had been hit hard by both of the previous two batters. Plus Morneau had already seen Perez once that afternoon. Yet Wedge decided to let Perez face him again, giving Morneau a chance at redemption. The Twins were the home team. The pressure was all on Perez. We saw it coming from a mile away. Thwack! Game winning single to right field.

If you don’t use your bullpen in a situation like that, when do you use it? These relief pitchers aren’t starters for a reason. Isn’t the whole point of a bullpen to bring fresh new pitchers in out of it to keep batters off balance at the end of a game? Neither the Plain Dealer nor Beacon Journal reporters who filed stories about this game cared to raise this question, both choosing to focus on the Tribe’s weak offense. Why these reporters didn’t raise this issue, which was directly and chiefly relevant to the outcome of the ballgame, is anyone’s guess. Until we get any information to the contrary, we will assume it is because they are either too entrenched to want to ask the tough questions, or are retarded themselves. Probably both. Either way, we're watching you Wedgie. And we did not like what we saw yesterday. At least today’s off day (and this bit of good local news) gives us a chance to rest our frowning muscles. . . unless LeBron breaks his back tonight.