No relief from MLB managers’ pen follies

READER Richard T. Monahan asks a good MLB question: “In what other sport or business is one removed from his job when he’s performing well in the hope that the next guy does as well?”

The Brewers lost to the Dodgers in the NLCS due to Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell’s insistence that effective pitchers be yanked, especially for reliever Jeremy Jeffress, who then was blasted.

The craziest part is that Counsell and most other managers these days would do it again. And again and again.

The Red Sox won Game 1 of the World Series, 8-4, as per MLB’s new norms: 24 strikeouts, 12 pitchers, Ouija Board managing and an 8½-inning game that ran 3:52, ending at midnight.

(But Rob Manfred, as heard Monday on ESPN Radio, thinks he’ll win kids back with that new ad campaign emphasizing bat-flipping, home plate-posing and selfish, unsportsmanlike play. Perhaps he’ll narrate an instructional video, plus self-defense tips for the brawls they ignite.)

The obligatory illogical new-standard, game-changing bullpen roulette moment was delivered by Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who, down 5-4 in the seventh inning of Game 1, pulled just-summoned reliever Pe

dro Baez, who had struck out two, both swinging. Perfect, sure. But not good enough.

So in came Alex Wood who, on his second pitch, allowed a three-run homer.

Why is such conspicuous senselessness ignored, sometimes even applauded as “The beauty of the chess match,” according to Fox’s John Smoltz?

Smoltz’s partner, Joe Buck, grew up watching, then calling, Cardinals games that were sealed when the likes of Bruce Sutter and Al Hrabosky entered. They often pitched more than an inning. And they certainly weren’t gassed after striking out the two batters they faced!

In St. Louis’ 1982, seven-game World Series win against Milwaukee, Sutter pitched four times, a total of eight innings.

So how does Buck suffer such modern senseless in silence?

Ron Darling, two years ago, asked a lingering question: “Why are the starters paid the big money, but the bullpens are expected to win the games?”

Come to think of it, why does Fox bother posting pitch-counts? Who’s going to be in long enough for pitchcounts to count?