Willie and the Pitching Staff

Willie Randolph is making the same mistakes with his pitching staff that he made last year.  Last night, he left Johan Santana in to pitch the eighth, then pulled him after two batters, sticking Aaron Heilman with a first-and-second, no-out situation.

Santana had already thrown 96 pitches, and the Mets had a four-run lead.  So why not start the inning with Heilman, rather than hope for a breezy five-pitch inning from Santana?  Yes, the Mets used every reliever except Scott Schoeneweis the day before, but Santana did his job.  Seven innings is plenty in today's MLB.  Then, you could use Schoeneweis for the eighth and Wagner for the ninth, meaning only one pitcher (Wagner) would have thrown on back-to-back days.

Instead, Willie, as he did last year, tried to squeeze one more inning out of his starter, then took him out after two batters.  He then used Heilman, Feliciano, and Wagner - three pitchers who were used the day before, to finish off the Phillies.

This is how the bullpen got burned out last year.  Not because of massive amounts of innings (only Heilman worked more than seventy innings last year), but because of how they were used.  Willie should bring his relievers in at the start of the inning more often, and avoid dropping them into trouble.

Billy Wagner

Meanwhile, I'm very impressed with the changes Billy Wagner has made coming into this season.  He now pitches from the windup with none on base, which adds deception to his delivery, and he's mixed in an offspeed slurve.  He's looking more and more like Jesse Orosco these days - except, of course, Orosco never threw 96 MPH fastballs.