In Monday’s game, the Minnesota Twins went into the eighth inning leading 8-2. According to Fangraphs, the Twins had a better than 99 percent chance to win the game. One inning later, and the Twins were higher than 98 percent — to lose. It’s not surprising that there was fan — and even some media — outcry after the bullpen combined to give up 14 runs over the final two innings.
But I’m here to tell you I don’t think Molitor made much in the way of critical missteps late in that ballgame.
A lot of baseball arguments and discussions boil down to if someone is looking at process or results. For instance, just because a bunt works and the runner scores, that doesn’t necessarily mean that it was a smart play. Just like a player might take a bad first step, but have the recovery speed to make a diving play on a ball he otherwise would have caught standing up with a good first step. It’s the same reason fans want guys who get RBIs, but don’t really understand where those come from. (Hint: It helps when guys get on base)
Consumers of baseball frequently conflate the two, with most fans being concerned with the results and not so much the process. And that’s OK! Fans don’t need to dedicate themselves to the inner workings of the game to show up at Target Field, knock back a couple beers and heckle Molitor when his bullpen puts up an 11 in the pivotal eighth inning.
It’s when fans try to make critiques of Molitor as a manager based on the results when his process was — in my estimation — mostly sound that we start breaking things down just a bit more critically.
The first point fans have made is “Why not push Ervin Santana for another inning?” After all, Santana has been downright brilliant this year while the bullpen has been so-so. This theory doesn’t hold water because few, if any managers are sending their starters back out with a six-run lead in the eighth when the pitcher has thrown 114 pitches — a season-high mark for the 34-year-old righty. There have only been 44 starts this season where pitchers have thrown that many pitches, for instance, and most of those games have been very, very close. Either way, pushing Santana further than he’s been pushed all season in a six-run game doesn’t make much sense.
Again, realize that Molitor doesn’t have the results to look back on. He has to make the decision in the moment.
Secondly, fans and media types were wondering why neither of the two arms brought up on Monday — Drew Rucinski and Jason Wheeler — were used to start the eighth inning. On the surface that logic makes sense; didn’t we hear how “taxed” the bullpen was after Sunday’s game coming into Monday when these two new pitchers were summoned?
The answer to that is, well, yes, but that’s not exactly the sort of role these guys were brought up for. Wheeler has started seven of his eight appearances for Rochester this season and 139 of his 140 appearances in six minor-league season in the Twins system. First of all, he’s never appeared in the big leagues at all. Maybe he goes Tyler Robertson on the bit — look it up, I’ll wait — and this whole conversation is rendered useless. Still, that feels like dubious reasoning that he’d have held the MLB-best Astros offense (by Fangraphs’ wRC+) at bay any differently than Ryan Pressly and friends failed to do.
Surely it’s possible, and I get the logic “if you won’t use him in a six-run game, when would you?” But that’s not what Wheeler is up for, in my estimation. He’s up to cover a short start — which seems odd that he’d come up on a day Santana is starting — but yesterday isn’t the only day he’ll be up in a vacuum. He’s also got to cover for Jose Berrios on Tuesday night — the youngster will be facing the MLB’s best offense, as we’ve noted — as well as Hector Santiago, who pitched in the 15-inning marathon loss on Sunday. He’s also insurance for Kyle Gibson, whose struggles have been well documented all season. So not using Wheeler is defensible on a number of grounds, in my estimation, as he may need to be used in an extensive role on a date TBD, but still somewhat soon.
The other thing to consider is that this is literally Wheeler’s first rodeo. He had a 4.50 ERA in Triple-A this season, and dropping him into the eighth inning of an MLB game against the best offense in the league is still a baptism by fire — especially such a righty-dominated lineup. Wheeler is strangely a reverse splits guy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that’ll overcome whatever splits Astros hitters might have.
Furthermore, consider if Molitor had managed in reverse. If after a couple swings Wheeler had let the Astros back into the game, he then has to go to Pressly anyhow. Without the luxury of knowing how things went down on Monday as-is, the move looks even worse, because now he’s burnt his long guy — at least for a portion of an inning — and still has had to go to the well with one of his usual guys. To hopefully salvage what should have been a done deal.
Again, it’s easy to look at how it panned out and say you’d have done things differently, but if Wheeler lets the Astros back into the game, it looks like poor management of not only a youngster, but a bullpen on the whole. Now if Santana had somehow given the Twins just four innings on Monday, dumping Wheeler in there to get 10-12 outs at least makes sense. It wouldn’t be a very good scenario since they can’t keep plucking Rochester’s starters on their day with the Red Wings playing not only Monday but a doubleheader on Tuesday, but at least it would make sense.
Basically speaking, Wheeler and Rucinski were up to cover in case the game got out of hand in a bad way. Hence, why Rucinski pitched in the ninth inning. At the end of the day, though, when you just need six outs, taxed bullpen or not, you’re going to go with your guys. For the most part, I don’t have a problem with the process. The results just wound up being unbelievably ugly. Sometimes these things will happen! And this one is magnified because they blew a big lead with their best guys on the mound — at least among those who were available — one day after a six-plus hour game. Baseball will break your heart.
But the idea that a 26 or 28-year-old minor league lifer was going to avert the disaster that ended up happening? I can’t get behind that. I will admit that I think the Rucinski move was a strange one, as he’d thrown 31 pitches on Saturday. Boshers — who was the corresponding call-up when Rucinski was sent back after Monday’s game — had thrown just 12 pitches in his most recent outing, which was also Saturday. So that part about it is odd to me, but the idea that Molitor went with the old “win today” adage adds up to me.
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