Less Podcast, More Bullpen

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I swear to God, if I see the "The Paul Mainieri Show is live..." notification on my LSU Sports app one more time, I think I might apply for the head coaching job next year. I don't think his biggest concern is going live from TJ Ribs (no free ads). His biggest concern should be the atrocious bullpen. The bullpen has talent. Paul just doesn't know how to utilize them. 

During a weekend game against Kentucky, Paul was forced to use an opener, and he chose Blake Money, a reliable reliever. But that is all he is- a reliever. He is not a starter. So why would Paul leave him in for 4 innings? During those 4 innings, he have up 5 earned runs. I'm not saying Money is a bad pitcher, he isn't. What I am saying is that Money is a reliever who is used to th
rowing an inning or two. His arm is used to throwing 4 consecutive innings of work. If you wanted to use the argument that Paul is trying to save his bullpen arms, that is simply not true. Paul will put in a good reliver who will strike out 2 batters on 6 pitches and then send in the guy with the 10.47 ERA to go 3+ innings. It doesn't make sense. 

Yesterday was yet another example of this. Will Hellmers, the starter, was only allowed to go 1.1 after giving up 2 earned runs. It's not like he had an astronomical pitch count; he was only at 21 pitches. A right handed batter came up to the plate, so Paul must have put in a righty pitcher to face him right? Wrong. He put in Jacob Hasty, a lefty to go longer than the starter, albeit only one more batter. 

"But he won the College World Series." Yeah, 12 years ago. Winning the College World Series 12 years ago does with a completely different roster not make you the greatest coach ever and make you infallible. Now is the time to fix the bullpen if you want to squeeze into the SEC Tournament and make a run. If he can't, then I say it's time to hang it up.
Dayne is a senior psychology major at Louisiana State University. He is originally from New Orleans and attended high school at Holy Cross. Other teams he likes are the Red Sox, Saints, Patriots, Bruins, Pelicans, and Celtics. He also has a career .500 batting average.

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