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Sergio Romo's 'opener' role is crazy, but here are five more innovative ways
teams could use their bullpens
The BBQ's Best 5 is exactly what it sounds like: Each week, we'll pick a
category around the world of baseball and talk about the five best things
within that group. Today, we're taking a look at the Best 5 ways teams could
utilize pitchers in unique ways.
Recently, the Rays turned the baseball world on its head by having established
reliever Sergio Romo start a game against the Angels. Romo thus faced the
opposing team's best hitters at the top of the lineup before turning the ball
over to a starter who then went deeper into the game.
Kudos to the Rays, but we think there's ample room to create even more outside
-the-box usage strategies for pitchers. These are the five bizarre pitching
strategies that baseball teams should adopt:
5. Have the ace of the staff relieve on his bullpen day
Sure, throwing a controlled bullpen before a game doesn't compare to a high-
leverage relief appearance, but imagine if an ambitious, competitive pitcher
were to be open to experimentation.
Say the Astros find themselves in a late-inning, one-out situation where they
really need a strikeout or two. Then boom, Justin Verlander emerges from the
bullpen, K's the two batters on 10 total pitches and gets Houston out of the
inning. We've seen it in the postseason, so why not use it more often during
the year?
4. Have the pitcher who finishes the first game of a doubleheader start the
second game too
This is something you see happen from time to time in college baseball. If
there isn't too much time between the first and second games of a twin bill,
and the guy who just successfully closed things out feels good, teams can just
let him ride.
Now, there's certainly more time between games in an MLB doubleheader than
there is at the college level, but just have that pitcher toss a jacket on and
do some stretching to keep the warm and you're totally fine.
3. Swap in position players to pitch against opposing teams' pitchers
By swapping a position player to throw to the other team's pitcher, NL starters
could reduce their pitch counts and go deeper into games.
Wouldn't you want Max Scherzer to chill in left field for a batter while Bryce
Harper pitches to Clayton Kershaw