Tampa starting relief pitcher. I advocated that in 2006.

Sergio Romo just started the first two games of his eleven year pitching career (514 innings in 590 games). In 2018 Romo relieved in 18 Tampa games through May 15 in Kansas City. Then on the road against the Angels Romo was the starting pitcher Saturday May 19 (Tampa won 5-3) and Sunday May 20 (Angels won 5-2). In the first game Romo pitched one inning and struck out all three batters. In the second Romo pitched into the second inning, facing six batters: 2 BB, 3 SO, 1.33 innings.

Tampa scored 4 runs in the second inning Saturday with Romo as the pitcher of record but a starter must pitch five innings to get a win. I've recommended that scoring rule be eliminated or at least reduced no more than four innings.

Here are the Tampa pitching stats for those two games:

Pitching	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA	BF	Pit	Str	Ctct	StS	StL	GB	FB	LD	Unk	GSc	IR	IS	WPA	aLI	RE24
Sergio Romo	1	0	0	0	0	3	0	4.67	3	18	10	4	2	4	0	0	0	0	56			0.048	0.63	0.5
Ryan Yarbrough, W (4-2)	6.1	4	1	1	1	4	0	3.54	23	92	60	40	4	16	6	12	5	0		0	0	0.193	0.60	2.0
Chaz Roe	0.2	0	0	0	0	0	0	4.76	1	5	2	1	0	1	1	0	0	0		1	0	0.030	0.76	0.5
Ryne Stanek	0	2	2	2	0	0	1	7.36	2	6	5	2	0	3	0	2	1	0		0	0	-0.074	0.69	-2.0
Alex Colome, S (10)	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	3.92	3	11	8	6	2	0	2	0	0	0		0	0	0.093	1.21	0.5
Team Totals	9	6	3	3	1	8	1	3.00	32	132	85	53	8	24	9	14	6	0	56	1	0	0.290	0.67	1.6

Pitching	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO	HR	ERA	BF	Pit	Str	Ctct	StS	StL	GB	FB	LD	Unk	GSc	IR	IS	WPA	aLI	RE24
Sergio Romo	1.1	0	0	0	2	3	0	4.34	6	28	13	3	4	6	1	0	0	0	55			0.046	1.18	0.5
Matt Andriese, L (1-2)	2	0	2	0	2	1	0	3.14	9	45	23	13	4	6	4	2	0	0		1	0	-0.080	1.29	-0.4
Jose Alvarado	1.1	1	1	1	2	1	0	3.20	8	28	13	5	4	4	0	4	2	0		1	1	-0.115	1.27	-0.9
Anthony Banda	3.1	3	2	2	2	2	1	5.40	14	57	34	23	4	7	2	8	2	0		1	0	-0.015	0.43	-0.2
Team Totals	8	4	5	3	8	7	1	3.38	37	158	83	44	16	23	7	14	4	0	55	3	1	-0.164	0.97	-0.9

For those who think this is weird, the Angels starting pitcher in the Sunday game was their DH, Shohei Ohtani.

Some of the original posts on this blog:

Radical Baseball Wednesday, February 20, 2008

June 9, 2006

1. Start the closer.
2. The Real scandal of the last 16 years: propagation of non-uniform playing areas.
3. Four leagues, no divisions.
4. Walks: a terrible rule.
5. Designated Fielders and the Six-Player Batting Order.
6. Clock, time-outs, … you know, like the other sports.

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Thinking Man's Guide to Managing a Pitching Staff Wednesday, February 20, 2008

December 10, 2007

The closer is used almost exclusively to pitch one and only one inning (the ninth), which he starts, and only with a lead. The set up man is the second best relief pitcher who pitches only the eighth inning. The set up man is removed no matter how many pitches he threw and no matter how well he pitched. It's like Russian roulette, looking for the pitcher who does not have his good stuff that day.

This is exactly backwards ...

Outs are the currency of baseball. Since pitchers are on pitch counts, pitches are the currency of individual pitchers. The manager should attempt to get the optimum number of pitches from each pitcher in each game ...

The best relief pitcher available should be the first to enter the game. The second best relief pitcher available should be the second to enter the game. And so on...

The bottom of the order is as likely to bat in the ninth as the top of the order.

Using this technique the pitchers most likely to be short changed, i.e., throw the fewest pitches, are the worst pitchers, not the best as is the case now. Each succeeding pitcher in order of value is increasingly more likely to throw fewer pitches.
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Let the starter close. Thursday, November 13, 2008

This is a variation on my theme of getting an optimal number of pitches from the best pitchers available for each game. This latest may be the easiest for conventional managers to implement. The pitchers we currently describe as starters would continue to pitch in a regular rotation as they do now. The difference would be that they enter the game in the fourth inning and finish it... So who pitches the first three innings? The same guys who now pitch the last three innings, except in reverse order. The closer starts because he is the team's best short pitcher. The advantages as mentioned in previous posts:

1. He pitches to the top of the batting order.
2. He may pitch more than one inning, depending on pitch count.
3. The game is close.

Next into the game is the second best relief pitcher and so on until the three innings are complete. Then the long man enters to finish the game. An additional advantage is that the opposing manager has a dilemma: does he set his lineup for the expected long man or for the short starter?
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