The Mets have used 27 different relievers this year, down three from the 30 they used a season ago. It would be nice if they could cut that number even more in the years ahead. But, a huge number of relievers is simply par for the course these days. Some of it is due to injuries; most of it is due to the general crappiness of relievers in today’s game.
On Saturday, the Mets had a one-run lead heading into the seventh inning. At the start of the year, the hope was that some combination of Brooks Raley, Adam Ottavino and Edwin Diaz would close out the game. Instead, it was Danny Young, Reed Garrett and Ryne Stanek. Raley’s missed most of the year due to injury and Ottavino has been busted to mop-up man. But Young and Garrett couldn’t hold the lead.
Carlos Mendoza is in the unenviable position of trying to make chicken salad with his relievers. And Young and Garrett have pitched much-better than most of us expected throughout the year. Young was brought into this game not because he was the second-best non-Diaz reliever but because two of the first three batters were lefties.
Young’s been very good against LHB this year so it’s not really fair to blame Mendoza in this situation. Maybe if he had more faith in Jose Butto or Ottavino, he would have used them, instead, and looked to leverage Young when he needed to get just one out. But he gave up a single to the first lefty, the first righty and was pulled after the second lefty executed the sac bunt to put two runners in scoring position.
Garrett was the best option that Mendoza had. The only quibble is that perhaps he should have started the seventh inning, with the idea of trying to get two frames from him. Earlier this year, Garrett regularly got six or more outs in an appearance. But he hadn’t done it since mid-May. He had not allowed a run in his previous nine outings but had just 8.2 IP in that span.
We’ve seen Mendoza ask more of his starting pitchers here recently, which has been a very good sign. But the flip side of that has been a reluctance to ask for multi-inning outings from pitchers like Garrett, who – at least theoretically – should be able to handle that load.
And the other part of the equation that needs to be discussed is that Garrett has been lousy with allowing inherited runners to score, making him – like most relievers – a better bet to come on at the start of an inning.
Prior to Saturday, Garrett inherited 29 runners on base and 13 of those scored, for a 45% ratio. This is a stat where the lower the number, the better. As a team, the Mets have a 33% ratio of inherited runners scoring, making Garrett below-average in this regard. Better choices to face inherited runners were Butto (27%), Ottavino (22%) and Young (6%).
Garrett let both inherited runners score Saturday, which means that now 48% of his inherited runners score.
The easiest thing to do is to maximize the opportunities your lefty reliever has to face lefty batters. But you need to look at things from a bigger-picture POV. The mainstream media will never criticize you for bringing in a lefty reliever when two of the first three batters up are lefties. But the idea isn’t to avoid criticism from the lunkheads in the press. It’s to put your team in the best position to win.
As a manager, you have to look ahead and prepare for things not going right. Sure, Young has been very good against LHB – but what if one gets on base? Garrett’s a better choice to bring into a game with a clean inning than he is to clean up another’s pitcher’s mess.
Perhaps Mendoza weighed the options and determined that it was more likely that Young could navigate the inning and he wouldn’t have to use another pitcher in the seventh inning. And it’s not like that was an indefensible choice. It just played out that way.
It’s easy for anyone reading this to say that this is nothing but second-guessing after the fact. And to be transparent, I was unaware that Garrett’s numbers were so poor. Or that Ottavino’s were that good. But it’s not my job to know those numbers. It’s either Mendoza’s or Jeremy Hefner’s job to know those. And they either didn’t know or they knew and disregarded them.
My hope is that if a similar situation happens, either today or any time the rest of the year, that the Mets won’t choose to have Garrett come on with runners on base. While what happened Saturday has no influence on what happens next, what’s happened over the entire course of the season makes using Garrett this way a bad proposition.
“And to be transparent, I was unaware that Garrett’s numbers were so poor. Or that Ottavino’s were that good. But it’s not my job to know those numbers. It’s either Mendoza’s or Jeremy Hefner’s job to know those. And they either didn’t know or they knew and disregarded them.”
Exactly! And has anyone heard from Phil Maton lately. I don’t understand how Mendoza manages. I’m trying to figure out if he has learned anything from the beginning of the year until now. And like I said many times, I think he is a very smart man but his tendencies to fall in love with a reliever until that reliever screws up and then not pitch him for a while is bad usage.
Unless it’s Diaz….
And with all of that Garrett nearly got them out of the inning. Got the first strike out he needed and then made a pretty darn good pitch on 3-2. A slider down and in that would have been a strike. One of those tip your cap moments. But yeah I agree that Garrett should have just started the inning.
The problem as I see it was simple. It was very obvious when Severino walked Turner. The balls were dragging and falling short. To get something over the plate he fed Harper a home run derby pitch. I called it during the game. Pitchers tend to fall off a cliff and to me it was clear Severino literally jumped off. So instead of turning to the pen with one on and Harper at the plate we saw a rapidly declining arm toss a noodle to the plate. That was the decision and action that turned the game around.
From there it was just a total problem chasing the Phillies who then had all the momentum.
The lack of being able to lost out a 4-1 game is a real downer, even though up to the Turner AB Severino was fantastic.