Rent Came Due for the Guardians

I woke up this morning and realized what is happening to the Guardians

All of Guardians fans are wondering why Emmanuel Clase looks mortal and the Cleveland bullpen has faltered in this ALCS.

After a short sleep, I have realized that the issue is simple: the Guardians ran up a bill by overusing their bullpen this season and during the playoffs and rent has come due.

Cade Smith has thrown 30 more pitches this month than he did in September. He is at 84.2 innings for the year. Clase has been asked to come in for multiple innings multiple times and is at 81.1 innings, overall. These are career highs for both. Tim Herrin has thrown six more innings this year than he did last year... and all of them have been high stress innings. All of these guys are constantly coming in with the weight of the city on their shoulders. All of this has come due in the playoffs because Guardians starters are not escaping the third inning, over and over and over.

I don’t want to hear from people who say manager Stephen Vogt should have intentionally walked Giancarlo Stanton rather than have the best reliever I have ever seen face him. I don't want to hear that Gaddis should have gone multiple innings instead of bringing in the best closer I have ever seen to get him to the bottom of the ninth.

The Vogt criticism that makes sense to me now is that Matthew Boyd should have stayed in longer against Detroit in game five of the ALDS. Would that have given these bullpen arms more gas in the tank to get through the Yankees' lineup in this series? I don't know. But I also know that I get why Vogt put it in their hands to get the team to this point because that's what they have done all year.

The Cleveland starters pitched the 24th lowest number of innings in MLB this season. Detroit was the lowest (affected by their opener/bulk strategy) and the rent came due for them against Cleveland. The Dodgers were 25th but they have starters now healthy who struggled to be healthy during the year. And their team can simply outslug anyone, apparently.

Props to Emmanuel Clase for answering questions from the media and taking responsibility for the game. He lost the game. He has failed against the Yankees. But, this is very likely just the natural result of asking too much from him and from a bullpen stretched to the point of breaking.

Today, It's time for Tanner Bibee to give the team some length. It's time for folks like Pedro Avila, Eli Morgan and Andrew Walters to be the high leverage guys as they have admirably done several times this postseason. Gaddis will probably close today if needed. Then, if the Guardians can get to New York again, their other best arms will have two days off and a chance to hopefully, hopefully be great at least one more time.

It's just as simple as the Guardians haven't had enough starting pitching. Not now, not all season. And rent has come due for us as fans and for a team which has been rescued time and time again by great bullpen arms.