Rotation proclamation

This postseason proves that depth is vital to a winning staff

Where have all the big-name starting pitchers gone? To a golf course near you, not the ALCS and NLCS. Of the 16 starting pitchers still playing, none has won a Cy Young Award. None is likely to get a single vote in the balloting this year. None pitched in the All-Star Game (and everybody pitched in that fiasco). Only two, Brad Radke and Matt Morris, have ever won 20 games in a season. Only two, Morris and Jarrod Washburn, won more than 16 games this year. Can you imagine Fox drumming up interest in any pitching matchup -- any combination -- to promote a game in either LCS?

It's crazy to think that after Curt Schilling dueled Roger Clemens in Game 7 of the World Series last year, a game in which Randy Johnson pitched in relief the day after winning as a starter, that four teams could move to the brink of a world championship with such low-wattage names in their rotations.

The ALCS, for instance, opened with Joe Mays, a losing career pitcher, opposing Kevin Appier, an All-Star once in his career. Blyleven vs. Ryan it wasn't. Naturally, they gave us a taut 2-1 pitcher's duel won by Mays. Think about this: If you could have any rotation among the four that are left, which would you take? I'd choose San Francisco's staff, which has never been known to have a true ace. What the Giants do have, however, are four solid starters who keep their team in the game, which frequently has proved to be a better formula than top-heavy rotations.

Consider how the curse of the dreaded three-man rotation helped take out two of the teams with pitching royalty, Oakland and Atlanta. Athletics manager Art Howe, with consideration from GM Billy Beane, took a double gamble. He elected to use only three starters and chose to have left-hander Barry Zito, his best pitcher all season, start only once against Minnesota, a team most vulnerable to left-handed pitching. (Zito pitched a meaningless game on the last day of the regular season, rather than being held out to enable him to start twice in the Division Series.) Oakland took a two-games-to-one lead against Minnesota, but bowed out when Tim Hudson and Mark Mulder lost on short rest in Games 4 and 5, respectively.

Howe didn't want to give the ball to Cory Lidle, the AL's best pitcher in August. The Oakland skipper said he tried the four-man rotation the past two seasons and it didn't work, so it was time to go with something different. However, Oakland wasn't playing the Yankees this time around, as they did the previous two years.

Meanwhile, Braves manager Bobby Cox elected not to give the ball to Damian Moss, preferring to pitch Tom Glavine and Kevin Millwood on short rest. Just like Oakland, Atlanta took a two-games-to-one lead, only to blow the series by using two starters on short rest. Oakland and Atlanta even lost the deciding games on their home field.

Cox has used starters on short rest four times in the postseason since 1996. His Braves are 0-4 in those games. (Maddux and Glavine, by the way, are a combined 6-14 in 25 postseason starts since Game 5 of the 1997 NLCS.) Washburn actually did win a game on short rest, though he lasted only five innings and benefited from an eight-run inning by his Angels teammates against New York in Game 4. How rare was that? It was only the second time in the last 25 occasions that a starter on short rest earned a win while facing a starter on full rest in the postseason. Check out these postseason records since 1995, when the playoffs were first expanded to three rounds: