Why Position Players Pitch over Starters in Marathon Games

With only their closer remaining in the bullpen, the Cleveland Indians summoned a starter in the 15th inning on Canada Day at the Rogers Centre. By contrast, after the Blue Jays used up all of their relievers, they employed a couple of infielders, Ryan Goins and Darwin Barney, to pitch the 18th and 19th.

Barney, who had never pitched in a professional game, gave up the winning homer in the 19th and the Jays lost 2-1.

That strategic disparity left a lot of Blue Jays fans puzzled, and others up in arms. Their question cascaded across social media: Why couldn't the Jays do what Cleveland did and use a real pitcher—a starter—to finish the marathon?

The answer: they had no choice.

"Who should have pitched the game in the 18th and 19th inning is exactly the people who pitched it," said R.A. Dickey, Toronto's starter the previous day.

Some fans thought Dickey should have helped out, presumably because they believe a soft-throwing knuckleballer needs no rest.

Dickey says that's not true. He needs one day of rest, which is why he was in the bullpen for emergency duty if needed the next day.

"Our bullpen threw 12 innings of one-run ball," said J.A. Happ, who started and won Sunday's game. "What do you want—20 innings of one-run ball, or no-run ball? What's the expectation here?"

The expectation seemed to be that if Cleveland starter Trevor Bauer could pitch five innings of shutout relief on short rest, Dickey or Happ or Marco Estrada should have been able to do the same.

The simple reason they couldn't work on Friday is that Dickey had thrown seven innings on Thursday, Happ had thrown a bullpen session on Thursday and Estrada, who started Saturday, was battling back problems.

But the issue is more nuanced than that. Starting pitchers don't simply sit back and relax during the four days between their starts. And when they throw in the bullpen on one of their "off-days," it's not like playing catch in the backyard.

Let's start with Dickey. He's 41. He said he threw about 60 pitches on Thursday to warm up for his start, in which he went seven innings and threw 92 pitches. To get and maintain a feel for his knuckleball, Dickey typically throws more warmup pitches than a conventional pitcher, and more in the bullpen between starts.

So he was unavailable for the marathon game. But he spent the next afternoon in the bullpen, just in case.

"I need one day," Dickey said. "The preparation for any starter that's going to be in the bullpen is a little bit tricky because you're used to preparing a whole different way, especially if you're older. I tip my hat to Bauer. He did a great job. He's a little bit younger guy who had pitched out of the 'pen already this year, so there's some experience there."

Bauer, 25, made six relief appearances this season before breaking into the Cleveland rotation. He was scheduled to start Saturday. On Thursday, he said, he threw a "high-intensity" session in the bullpen. He lifted weights on Thursday and Friday because he did not expect to pitch.

So what he did was indeed remarkable: five innings of two-hit, no-run ball to help Cleveland win its 14th straight, a franchise record.

To the Indians, that milestone was worth the obvious tradeoff: Bauer could not pitch as scheduled on Saturday. The Indians had to piece together the Saturday start, relying on a pitcher just up from Double-A and four relievers they had used the previous day. The Blue Jays won 9-6.

The fallout continued Sunday, when the Jays sent Cory Kluber to the showers before the fourth inning ended. Cleveland's bullpen took another beating in a 17-1 Toronto win.

The series may have ended 2-2, but Cleveland came out looking worse for the wear. In Sunday's rout, catcher Chris Gimenez wound up pitching the final two innings.

There are always tradeoffs. Indians manager Terry Francona hates to pitch position players. Last year outfielder Ryan Rayburn wound up on the disabled list after Francona sent him to the mound in a 17-0 loss. But unlike Goins and Barney, who faced high-stakes pressure in a 1-1 game, at least Gimenez did not have to bear down.

"Everybody was pretty much in survival mode," Gimenez said. "I told (Francona), I said, 'Hey, if I have to throw, I will absolutely do it, because there's more at stake here than just this game.' We've got a big series coming up against Detroit at home where we need guys fresh and ready to go. If I have to go out there and throw 63 miles an hour, then so be it."

Pitchers typically throw 25 to 35 pitches in the bullpen between starts. Happ, 33, had thrown his bullpen session, otherwise known as a "side," on the day before the long game on Canada Day.

The stress level of a side session varies with the pitcher and what he is aiming to accomplish on that particular day.

"It can involve working on a particular pitch," said Jays' pitching coach Pete Walker. "It can involve a mechanical adjustment. It can be just getting the body loose and used to being off the mound again. For the most part, we try to keep it non-strenuous, especially with veteran pitchers, because those days between starts are so valuable in order to build up and be properly prepared for their upcoming start."

Happ, however, says his side sessions are taxing, by his own choice.

"When you're throwing a bullpen, you're working on things," he said. "You're being aggressive in there. It really does no good, in my mind, to go out there and throw a bullpen at 50, 60, 70 percent, because that's not game speed. It has the negative effect—the opposite effect of what you want it to. You're trying to get muscle memory. You're trying to get release point and feel. For me, the energy level is high and the effort level is high."

By contrast, Estrada rarely throws in the bullpen between starts, and not just because of his persistent low-back tightness. (That condition alone would have ruled him out to pitch in relief Friday, but the Jays never would have considered it under any circumstances.)

"If I like where I'm at, I'm not going to do anything, I'm not going to change anything," Estrada said. "I'll save as many bullets as possible."

He said he thinks he has thrown three sides this season. Two came as spring training slipped into the regular season, which he started on the disabled list because of his back issues.

"It was because early on, I missed so much time, I still needed more bullpens to get going," he said. "Once I felt I was ready and felt I was where I needed to be, I basically haven't thrown one since until maybe a few weeks ago.

"I decided to throw one. I threw eight pitches. I worked on my cutter. I threw four cutters, four fastballs, felt good and I said, 'All right, that's enough.'"

Last year as well, Estrada said he stayed away from the bullpen except on his start days. On occasions when he did throw between starts, he kept the sessions short and sweet.

"They'd be a few pitches," he said. "Once I get the feel for something, I basically tell myself, 'That's it, it's in your head, that's exactly what you wanted to feel. Don't think about it any more. Just go out and do it.'"

Which he has been doing consistently, even when in pain, as he was during his five-inning stint on Saturday. He hopes a series of cortisone shots in his low back on Monday will allow him to make his next scheduled start on Thursday.

Marcus Stroman started the Canada Day game. Having eliminated Estrada, Dickey and Happ as relievers, the only other option was Aaron Sanchez, Monday's starter. The Jays are trying to limit his innings. He keeps making that more difficult by working deep into games. His past two starts lasted eight innings, the latest in a win vs. Kansas City on Monday night.

His record is 9-1, his ERA 2.94. He ranks among the elite pitchers in the American League. And he could finish the season as a setup man.

Management originally said Sanchez, whom the Jays have bounced back and forth from the bullpen to the rotation, would reach an unspecified innings limit sometime after the all-star break and be sent to the bullpen again. Careful analysis of quotes from GM Ross Atkins suggests a slight softening of that stance, but on Monday, manager John Gibbons reiterated that he thinks Sanchez will wind up as a reliever this season.

As for using Sanchez in that 19-inning game, Gibbons laughed at the suggestion.

"With all the stuff hanging over his head, he wasn't gonna be the guy," Gibbons said.

Every day, for every team, a pitcher throws a side session. Some throw on the second day after a start, some on the third. If they're struggling, they might focus on mechanics. If they're not, they do what they feel is necessary to keep a good thing going.

"It's not black and white," says Walker. "It's definitely something that's adjusted based on the previous start, depending on the amount of innings and pitches they threw, and the stress of the innings. All of those things have a role in what kind of bullpen session it's going to be."

It's different for pitchers working their way up through the minors. Dane Johnson is in his second season as the Jays' bullpen coach, but for 11 seasons before that, he was the club's minor-league pitching co-ordinator. He presided over the development of countless prospects, including Sanchez and Stroman.

"In the lower minors, we work on spotting fastballs, working ahead in counts and then maybe throwing the changeup after that," said Johnson, whose brief big-league career included 10 games as a Toronto reliever in 1996. "It's more specifically directed at a certain amount of pitches and it's more instructional.

"Here (in the majors), it's get ready for that fifth day, whereas in the minors, you take advantage of opportunities on the side for teaching moments to work on something specific, without going into a whole variety of things to confuse the pitcher even more."

Pitching at any professional level is hard, requiring constant adjustments and mental trickery to maintain confidence in the face of adversity. From a fan's point of view, it might seem a whole lot simpler.

"With certain pitchers, the media and the fans will not necessarily know that they're going through some difficulties," Walker says. "It could be anything from a bad back to a fatigued arm at times. Over the course of a season, that happens to pitchers. You monitor it accordingly."

Add it all up, and using a starter in long relief is a perilous decision. Which is why the Blue Jays picked two infielders to finish that Canada Day game.

"There was no choice," Johnson said.