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EVENTS
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CNNSI.com GROUP
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Here today, gone tomorrow? Managers' use of pitchers in Game 6 may affect Game 7
Updated: Sunday November 04, 2001 3:56 AM
By Stephen Cannella, Sports Illustrated PHOENIX -- There's been a lot of talk during this Series about carryover, about how the outcome of one game affects the result of the next. After their crushing defeats in Games 4 and 5 at Yankee Stadium, the Diamondbacks insisted they'd be refreshed and emotionally stable the next day, and they were right -- they destroyed the Yankees, 15-2, in Game 6. There may be some carryover from Saturday night's blowout, however. Not emotional: Yankees reliever Mike Stanton even said after the game that sometimes such lopsided losses are easier to take than one-run squeakers. The Saturday Night Massacre will be felt in Sunday's Game 7 in the effect it will have on the pitching staffs. Game 7 of the World Series is always an all-hands-in-deck battle. Someone had to utter the time-honored cliché Saturday night, and Stanton did. "I can throw as many pitches as I need to throw tomorrow," he said. "We have all winter to rest."
No doubt Stanton, who has pitched in the postseason after every full season of his major league career, will be ready and willing in Game 7. But New York manager Joe Torre made a curious move by having Stanton, his most reliable bullpen left-hander, throw two useless innings with Game 6 already well out of hand. Stanton was brought in to start the seventh inning with the Diamondbacks leading by 13 runs and left in to finish the game. He was effective, allowing just a walk and a single, but his innings weren't spectacularly short. He threw close to 30 pitches, a fairly heavy workload for a setup reliever. With Game 6 already over, perhaps Torre should have saved Stanton for the more important Game 7, even if it meant bringing in a position player to mop up the bottom of the eighth inning. An embarrassing novelty act on the postseason stage? Yes, but it might be worth it if it helps secure a world championship the next day. Torre acknowledged that he thought about such a move and joked that Paul O'Neill and Luis Sojo volunteered to take the mound. "It would have come to that, possibly, if [Scott] Brosius had not popped up to end [the sixth inning], because I would have pinch hit for [left-hander Randy] Choate and I didn't want to pitch Stanton for more than two innings. As much as you hate to do that in postseason play, I would rather do that than use someone from the bullpen." Torre does have left-hander Sterling Hitchcock available in the bullpen for Game 7. Arizona manager Bob Brenly has no such depth in his pen, which is why his decision to leave Randy Johnson in for seven innings in Game 6 could haunt him. With a win secured by the fifth inning, Brenly easily could have lifted Johnson. Even the Arizona bullpen could have nailed down a 15-run lead -- we think -- and Brenly would have had the luxury of having the Unit available for a few hitters or maybe even a full inning in Game 7. Instead, Brenly let Johnson pitch seven innings and throw 104 pitches -- a light workload by his standards, but still one that probably precludes him from pitching Sunday. "We needed to win this game," said Brenly. "We were going to let Randy pitch until I felt the game was well in hand. Seven innings was a reasonable effort." That speaks volumes about Brenly's faith in his relief corps. That being the case, having the Unit sitting in the bullpen Sunday night would have added some serious heft to a lightweight group. If nothing else, it would force Torre to think twice before going to his bench for a left-handed hitter like David Justice. And with Curt Schilling starting on short rest for the second time in four days, odds are Brenly will have to piece together the final innings of Game 7 with his relievers. Johnson, for his part, said he could come back in Game 7. "Nothing is out of the question. I have four months to rest."
Whether he rests as a World Series champion might have been decided Saturday.
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