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About Last Night: Battle Of The Bullpens

Newest theory: Bullpens, not starting pitching, will determine the outcome of this series and maybe the AL West race as a whole. Addressed a lot of the issues yesterday in the series preview.

What’s disconcerting, if you are the Rangers and obsessing over bullpen pitch totals as I am, is that the Rangers threw considerably more pitches out of the bullpen last night (74) than did the Angels (36) even though Rangers starter Kevin Millwood once again pitched deeper into the game than his opponent. What mitigates most of that consternation, however, is that Derek Holland threw 58 of those pitches, so the bullpen workload wasn’t spread out among too many people. Holland won’t be available for the rest of the series, but he wouldn’t have been available even if he’d have come out after the eighth inning last night.

In the event that RHP Vicente Padilla doesn’t go at least seven innings and allow one hit for the third straight outing, the guy to watch in the bullpen today is RHP Jason Jennings. It’s part of the reason he ended up not pitching or warming up last night, giving a fifth consecutive off night. The Rangers can’t use Holland or Jennings on back-to-back days, so one was going to have to pitch one day and one would have to be available the next.  If Padilla makes it through the middle innings, the Rangers should have Jennings to fill the role Holland did yesterday and LHP Eddie Guardado, RHP Darren O’Day and LHP C.J. Wilson to mix-and-match in the ninth inning.

With a bullpen that is currently limited on several fronts – Frank Francisco’s unavailability, the inability to pitch Holland, Jennings or seemingly forgotten-about long man RHP Kris Benson on back-to-back days – its going to take some creative management out there. On one hand, last night, it looked like Ron Washington left Holland in a game longer than he needed to. On the other hand, using Holland as long as he did last night, gives him the widest array of weapons to use today and Sunday.

The other thing to keep in mind today is that Angels starter John Lackey is making his first start of the season after dealing with arm problems and isn’t going to stick around long. In each of his two rehab starts for Triple-A Salt Lake, Lackey threw 75 pitches, so he should be limited to about 90 pitches. If the Rangers can make him work at a pace that matches his career arc against Texas (a 17.4 pitches per inning average), he might make it through five innings. That puts more pressure on the Angels bullpen, knowing they are going to have to go at least four innings. Angels relievers have thrown 200 more pitches than their Rangers counterparts over the last 11 days, so there is a fatigue factor that the Rangers could potentially exploit by making Lackey work even harder than he traditionally has against the Rangers.