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Hunter Gaddis pitched on three straight days four times in the last two years. He allowed seven runs in 3 2/3 innings on the third day, including the series-deciding homer to Juan Soto last year and the big hits to Wenceel Perez, Spencer Torkelson, and Riley Greene to seal the Tigers’ win yesterday. Cade Smith has a stronger record on a third day, but he’s also been asked to do it rarely -- five times, including in the same postseason games Gaddis was asked to do so. Sabrowski, prior to yesterday, had never been asked to pitch on three straight days. I think Vogt lost yesterday’s game on Wednesday when he pulled Tanner Bibee, his ace, after 14 outs, starting the reliever carousel before he had to, and setting up yesterday’s point of failure.
I don’t want to make pitching on three straight days into some Herculean task. It was pretty standard usage as recently as 15 years ago. If you don’t build that into your relievers, though, as teams no longer do, then asking them to do it in a max-leverage spot is just asking for trouble. You can’t baby your relievers for six months and then whip them in the seventh. Vogt did not learn that lesson a year ago. We’ll learn next year whether he’s learned it now.
