Something can at once be (1) fully within the rules, (2) obviously a smart thing to do, and (3) completely and utterly annoying and worthy of scorn.
Last night, after they’d just scored a couple runs to make it a seven-run game, the Milwaukee Brewers faced just one batter in the 7th before shutting down their bullpen and going to a position player to pitch. By rule, a losing team can use a position player to pitch if they’re down by at least eight runs. For the Brewers, that came immediately after Carson Kelly hit a home run to lead off the bottom of the 7th. That took it from a seven-run deficit to an eight-run deficit, the rule kicked in, and Pat Murphy immediately went to Andrew Vaughn with nobody out in the 7th.
Because of that Kelly homer, the move was fully within the rules.
Because they were extremely unlikely to come back from an eight (or even seven)-run deficit, the move was a smart thing to do.
But it just felt so ridiculous in the moment, especially against your rival, and especially against a Cubs bullpen that just gave up eight runs over three innings a few days earlier.
“The position-player stuff gets a little ridiculous at the end there, honestly,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said in the context of the record-setting night by the offense, per Cubs.com. “That’s great we set a record. And the guys aren’t going to stop hitting. Guys are not going to stop hitting. They’re going to take advantage of it, and they should. They absolutely should. We’ll take it.”
Which, by the way, is part of why it’s so annoying that the Brewers pulled the plug as early as they did: now, you’ll have yahoos saying the Cubs’ records come with an asterisk … as if we’re supposed to punish them in the record books for beating the bricks off the Brewers so badly that they put their tail between their legs and gave up.
It’s also just annoying to know that, because the Cubs beat the Brewers so badly, they now get a BONUS for the rest of this series, having rested most of their bullpen. Despite their starter going only 3.2 innings, the Brewers actually used their bullpen less (2.1 innings) last night than the Cubs did (3.0 innings)!
Yes, yes, I know the flip side. With a lead that had reached 14 runs by the 9th inning, the Cubs also could’ve gone to a position player (a winning team may do so when up at least 10 runs in the 9th). They chose instead to give Colin Rea a little more low-leverage work, given how little he’s pitched of late. Fair enough. Cubs made a choice. I just hate that the Brewers get a positive out of losing so badly. I’m a hater. Sue me.
As for the broader issue of position players pitching, I know a lot of folks really hate it and would want to see rules changes that either eliminate it or at least make it very difficult to deploy. If run differential were a direct tiebreaker, that would certainly help. Or if you have to declare one reliever inactive the next day for every position player you use to pitch. Or every team gets one emergency pitcher not on the roster. There are a number of creative possible approaches.
That said, for me, I’m less interested in trying to legislate this out by rule, and more interested in shaming teams that go above and beyond like the Brewers did last night.
Ugh. But even as I say that, I see Pat Murphy’s comments about the situation … and it becomes all the more understandable that the Brewers did what they did.
“When you’re using a six-man rotation because of all of the young pitchers, and you only have seven in the ‘pen, and you’re on a 16-game stretch [without an off-day], that’s what it is,” Murphy said, per Brewers.com. “You have games like today. Would it have mattered if it was 10-2 or 17-3? That’s not the difference. We’re not playing for run differential, we’re playing to try to win as many games as we can.”
It was just the smart thing to do. I hate it. I think it looked really silly. But it was smart.
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