In the World Series setting, a bullpen game just feels wrong | ET REALITY

The Athletic has live coverage of Rangers vs. Diamondbacks in Game 5 of the World Series

PHOENIX — Game 4 of the World Series should have come with a Halloween warning label: Overuse of overmatched relief pitchers. May not be suitable for die-hard fans.

There were 11 hits from the winning team, 12 hits from the losing team, 13 pitchers in total, and it could have taken 14 hours, if not for the shot clock.

That’s a modern innovation that kept the Texas Rangers’ 11-7 rout of the Arizona Diamondbacks tolerable: It ended in less than 200 minutes. Then again, so was “Waterworld,” and audiences didn’t like that either.

With wild card winners and low-wattage superstars, this World Series always had the challenge of capturing provincial fans in coastal markets. However, the first three games were convincing and an Arizona victory in Game 4 would have ensured that the Series would extend to at least six games for the fifth consecutive year.

Now the Rangers are leading, three games to one, with a chance to clinch their first title in Game 5 on Wednesday. Fortunately, it’s a rematch between experienced starting pitchers, Nathan Eovaldi for Texas and Zac Gallen for Arizona. This time there are no openers.

The first game, before it was called that, was once a charming part of World Series history: 99 years ago, the Washington Senators started Game 7 with a little-used right-hander, Curly Ogden, hoping to attract the New York Giants to load their lineup. with lefties. Ogden faced only two batters, so there was no three-batter minimum! – before giving way to a lefty, and the senators won.

Now, of course, the opener is a common tactic, popularized by the Tampa Bay Rays, baseball’s low-budget learning laboratory. We’ve had bullpen games several times in the recent World Series (from the Rays and Dodgers in 2020 and from the injury-ravaged Braves in 2021) and the Diamondbacks embraced the idea for Game 4.

“You’re giving guys different looks all game long,” said Joe Mantiply, the left-hander who got the first four outs for Arizona on Tuesday. “Every hitter never sees the same guy twice. Obviously, what Ryne (Nelson) did tonight was huge; he stepped up and ate five entrees for us. But the strategy is to limit the number of at-bats guys get from the same guy.”

To look at the score is to wonder why Nelson didn’t just start. Called on in the fourth with his team trailing by 10 runs, Nelson worked 5 1/3 innings, allowing one run and striking out six with no walks. It would have been a credible start.

Nelson made 27 starts this season and had a 5.31 ERA, not great, but better than Brandon Pfaadt’s 5.72. Pfaadt has thrived primarily as a starter this postseason, but Nelson has been buried in the bullpen and has struggled in the playoffs.

Nelson acknowledged that he had stepped away from a larger role; Demoted to the minors in August, he didn’t show enough down the stretch to be trusted as a starter. If he had, perhaps his effort in Game 4 might have mattered more.

“That’s the frustrating part for me,” Nelson said. “If I had earned it, maybe this game would have ended differently.”

Without a starter for Game 4, Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo needed his second-string relievers to keep the game close until he could call on his last trusted team: Ryan Thompson, Kevin Ginkel and Paul Sewald. When Texas unloaded on Mantiply, Miguel Castro, Kyle Nelson and Luis Frías, aided by a Christian Walker error in the third, Lovullo never had a chance.

Lovullo is confident enough to candidly explain his movements; He knows he doesn’t have all the answers. If he had known Nelson could pitch as long (and as well), couldn’t he have started it and avoided the disaster that unfolded?

“You look at it a little differently after you know what the outcome is,” Lovullo said. “And maybe it was an option for us after the first game. Maybe it was an option for us to open the baseball game. But he did his job and I wasn’t surprised. I just know there were some shaky exits in the postseason and we were trying to protect him a little bit, build his confidence and put him in the right place. And today was certainly that.”

The Diamondbacks won their bullpen game against Philadelphia in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, although the Phillies scored against four of their relievers and Craig Kimbrel blew the save. Lovullo took the risk again and paid for it with a loss, and an unpleasant one at that.

“It wasn’t the traditional World Series game with a lot of World Series moments,” he admitted, adding that he was simply trying to find the best way to win a game.

“We know we have our three starting pitchers lined up for the next three days, and this is where we’ve been as an organization to have to do something like this. But the game is a little different than it was in 1975, when I was watching the Big Red Machine against the Boston Red Sox. “That was a totally different feeling.”

The epic sixth game in 1975, when Carlton Fisk waved his home run right in the 12th inning, it was actually kind of a bullpen parade for Cincinnati. Manager Sparky Anderson retired his starter after two innings and set a record for using seven relievers in a World Series game.

But the drama that night was so dense, the performances so dazzling, that the changes in tone only increased the tension. This one, on the other hand, was a bust, partly because of poor Texas pitching at the end, but mostly because the World Series should be better than this one.

There’s a fine line between strategy and manipulation, and in this scenario, a bullpen game just feels wrong.

“I’ll be honest, I’m not a big fan of this during the season,” Texas manager Bruce Bochy said. “A lot is being done, but I understand that if you don’t have a starter who fits that position, you have to do it, you have to adapt to your club.

“I’m not saying it’s not a good thing. You’re in a World Series; You have to do what you can to win a ball game. But I say that in general, and that’s my thinking over the years, because I think fans love matchups.”

Maybe the Rangers would have hit Ryne Nelson if he had been a starter; There is much more stress in a tied game than in a blowout. Or maybe Nelson would have etched his name into World Series history. Either way, it would have been fun to find out.

(Top photo of Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo throwing out Ryne Nelson in the ninth inning: Harry How/Getty Images)