The Orioles lost a "ho-hum" kind of game yesterday to the Tampa Rays by the score of 5-4. It wasn't a poor outing by Brad Bergesen, or the Orioles for that matter, but it was obvious that the late night the evening before affected both teams. These afternoon matinee games are supposed to benefit one or both teams' travel schedules (only the Rays in this case) in that they can move onto the next city earlier in the evening rather than after a night game. However in this case I'm sure that nobody was really looking to play at 12:30 PM after the game Tuesday evening.
I'm sure that most people read my headline and wanted to ask if I was crazy. Work with me here folks! Since the O's played in the afternoon yesterday, I filled my evening by watching the Washington Nationals play the Cincinnatti Reds, a game started by Stephen Strasbourg. The Nationals won the game 8-5, and Strasbourg pitched 5.2 innings, spreading three runs over seven hits, walking one and striking out seven. All in all, I'd say that it was a decent outing for Strasbourg, although it was far from his best outing (he said so after the game himself). However I noticed that Jim Riggleman took him out of the game after he allowed two runs in the sixth inning, cutting the Washington lead to 7-3 at the time.
There are different schools of thought in terms of how to handle young pitchers, and I recognize that every pitcher is different. As an example, Juan Samuel allowed Brian Matusz and Chris Tillman (who was optioned to triple-A yesterday) to give up massive amounts of runs on Sunday and Monday. Granted those starters were chased in the early innings of those games, but the fact is that the damage was done to them. Every hall of fame pitcher, including Jim Palmer and Nolan Ryan, has been shelled. And I don't mean they came out flat and lost the game, I mean seriously shelled to the tune of seven or eight runs. Brian Matusz and Chris Tillman are no exceptions to that. While Matusz and Tillman aren't as young as Strasbourg, they're still young (although they have a bit more experience). In my opinion, you have to allow a young pitcher to fail (for lack of a better term). By that, I mean that if he goes out there and totally screws the pooch, you eventually remove him from the game and let him stew on the bench for the rest of the day. In the time between then and his next start, he'll have the opprotunity to sit down with his pitching coach and go over the game film (which he undoubtably doesn't want to see). The pitching coach will show him what he did wrong mechanically or perhaps even mentally, and they'll work together to get the problem(s) fixed. Come that pitcher's next start, or perhaps even at a time well down the line in his career, he might remember that conversation when he starts to lapse back into those negative tendancies. This will better allow him to identify the problem and to correct it by making an in-game adjustment.
I suppose what I'm saying is that my impression was that Jim Riggleman lifted Stephen Strasbourg at the first sign of adversity. In a wartime situation, I'd call that cutting and running. In the same respect, I also recognize that you don't want the kid to lose his confidence. However why not at the very least let him finish out the inning and see if he can pitch his way out of the adversity that he himself created? Certainly allowing someone to give up seven runs doesn't do much for the cause in that particular game. However the lessons that the pitcher could learn from that might well resonate down the line.
Will Brian Matusz be a better pitcher than Stephen Strasbourg at the end? Survey says: not according to the scouting reports (although I love Matusz and I think he's going to be a star in his own right). However what I'm saying is that a pitcher like Matusz that's gone through the process of being shelled and learned from the experience (presumably) might be better equipped to deal with adverse situations on the mound than one that's lifted at the first sign of trouble. There certainly comes a point where you have to lift a starter, however part of pitching is pitching out of problems. Everything's fine and dandy when you're mowing the opposition down, but when they get a few guys on base and drive in a few runs, you need to learn how to get out of that situation, and that's what Brian Matusz, Chris Tillman, and Brad Bergesen are learning right now.
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