Yankees: Will they eventually replace starting pitching altogether?

The Turning of the Tide

We all agree that relief pitching has taken hold of baseball, especially in this decade, do we? Because if there is any disagreement, we haven’t been watching the same games.

And there’s a term floating around that explains more. They call it Playoff Baseball. And it’s when managers adopt a who new philosophy regarding how they use their pitching staffs. It’s driven by the fact the these are short series and “every game counts.”

And that’s how we saw, for example, Aroldis Chapman thrust into a World Series game by Joe Maddon in the fifth or sixth inning, and not in his routine ninth inning closer role.

What the Yankees appear to be doing with Joe Girardi driving the ship is to adopt playoff baseball as regular season baseball. And why not?

Girardi has the tools to do it, courtesy of Brian Cashman and the trade he recently made with the White Sox to bring in two quality relievers, Kahnle and Roberton, adding to the stash he already had.

Sabathia was not a happy camper last night when his manager took the ball from him at a time when he had 25-30 pitches left in his tank. But you could also see in his body language that he was more upset with himself. Moreover, as a veteran who understands the game, he “gets” what Girardi is doing, even though he may not be happy about it.

And maybe, Sabathia even sees where this thing is going.