At least nobody's arm fell off

“Too many pitchers, that's all, there are just too many pitchers, 10 or 12 on a team. Don't see how any of them get enough work. Four starting pitchers and one relief man ought to be enough. Pitch 'em every three days and you'd find they'd get control and good, strong arms.”- Cy Young, Hall Of Fame Pitcher

Did you check out yesterday’s Pirates-Braves game? A 12-11 final. The relief pitchers gave up 17 of the 23 runs. Eric Gagne and Kerry Wood both blew leads for the Brewers and Cubs respectively. Old Cy has it right. Bullpens are so overrated. There was a time when it was a disgrace for a pitcher to be relegated to the pen rather than be a starter. Yesterday’s debacles:

Johan Santana goes 7 strong for the Mets-Willie Randolph uses 3 guys in the eighth-with the Marlins a hit away from tightening a 6-2 game. Keep in mind, Santana had 15 K’s in a game last season and only went eight innings.

In L-A, Brad Penny goes 6 and 2 thirds-comes out in the 7th with a shutout. Joe Torre, who played with guys like Warren Spahn and Bob Gibson, should be ashamed of himself.
Don’t get me wrong-every team could sure use a Papelbon or Mariano. But is Jorge Sosa better than any Mets starter? Yankee fans, does Kyle Farnsworth bring you excitement after say, Pettitte or Wang go six innings?

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The coddling of starting pitchers is EVEN WORSE when you consider that managers only go to the guys in the pen you they trust anyway. Ask Joe Torre, Yankee fans-you know what I’m talking about. Ramiro Mendoza, Mike Stanton, Jeff Nelson, later Joba-all carried the load at various times.

I mean, how will you find out if a Pelfrey, a Hughes or Kennedy has some guts if you don’t give them chances to escape tough spots? I’d take Leo Mazzone or Jim Palmer as my pitching coach any day. Their approach-have guys THROW-teaching them mechanics and pitches like the changeup that don’t strain your arm. Instead, we get pitch counts, ‘matchups’-and 4 hour games. The great thing is-for all its warts, baseball is still the best sport out there-when its played well.