Oscar Gamble Society

You may not realize it, but the Brewers are currently carrying 14 pitchers and 11 hitters. I believe that is unprecedented. Part of the reason is that Ben Sheets is going to miss a start, so in reality, they are going with a 13 man staff, but that is still too many pitchers. One of those pitchers is Derrick Turnbow, recently referred to by Yost as All-Star reliever Derrick Turnbow. After his “All-Star” year {See the second half stats of that year to see why I put all-star in quotes}, the Brewers signed him to a 3 year deal. It was a very reasonable deal by reliever standards (3 years / 6.5 million), but it was enough that they couldn’t cut him in 2008 (3.2 Million). He may have value to some other team. Detroit and Atlanta badly need relief pitching, but there are likely better options than a guy who the current team has buried. This brings me to Monday night. After an extra inning game on Sunday, and several short starts by the Starting staff, the bullpen {despite having 8 guys} was shot. The Cardinals went ahead 3-2 in the top of the 8th. The Brewers tied it up in the bottom, and Turnbow was brought in for the 9th in a tie game. This was his first high leverage situation. The team was clearly showcasing him for a deal, and it was a good time to do it. Many have blasted the decision to use Turnbow, but the reality is that he was brought in to pitch the 9th because the Cardinals had their 8-9-1 hitters coming up. If they had brought in Riske to pitch the 9th, they would have been forced to use Turnbow in the 10th against Pujols, Ankiel, Glaus. Of course, Turnbow proceeded to throw 3 straight fastballs all perfectly hit to blow the game…..

Of course, Yost couldn’t come right out and say that after the game.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 at 7:00 am and is filed under Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.