Charlie lets Lieber pitch

The back end of the Phillies bullpen is woefully bad. This leaves Charlie Manuel in a difficult situation. To avoid using the bullpen Manuel chooses to let his starters pitch as many innings as possible. The Phillies are winning baseball games now but it won’t last if Charlie doesn’t start trusting his bullpen.

The Phillies starters have been throwing a lot of pitches. Tired starters are bad for the Phillies long-term success for several reasons. In this most recent game Jon Lieber threw 109 times in six innings giving up two innings. That’s a good days work for Lieber. Manuel chose to trot Lieber out for the seventh inning and he promptly gave up a home run to Matt Stairs. Fatigued pitchers have a pension to pitch poorly so it’s no coincidence that Lieber gave a dinger.

Using starters longer also means less pinch-hitting. When Manuel let Lieber lead off the sixth inning he was essentially conceding an out. The Phillies could have much more easily scored a much-needed insurance run if he had pinch-hit.

Sources:
Picture of Jon Lieber from MLB.com