ALCS postmortems

I've been seeing a number of articles and posts today about Dan Wilson's alleged failure managing his bullpen in last night's Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, which the Toronto Blue Jays won by a score of 4-3. Most of these pieces were written by people that have not followed Your Seattle Mariners all year, and the way you can tell that is by noticing what's not in those articles/posts.

Wilson, the Mariners' first-year (full year, anyway) manager, made the following pitching moves in Game 7:

• Relieved starter George Kirby after four innings and just 65 pitches, leading 3-1. Kirby hadn't been at his sharpest, but he was getting the job done. He was replaced by Bryan Woo, who had been Seattle's best pitcher all year but missed the last few weeks with a pectoral strain; he'd thrown two innings in Game 5, his first action since September 19th. Theoretically, Woo could go for a few frames; he wasn't ready to go a starter's duration yet, but if he was on he could get pretty deep. Woo pitched two scoreless again, bringing us to the 7th with the score still 3-1 M's.
• Left Woo in to begin the 7th inning. He immediately looked tired, though, and walked the leadoff batter. Next batter, Isaiah Kiner-Falefa, grounded a single up the middle. The next guy did the obvious thing and sacrificed the runners to 2nd and 3rd, bringing up George Springer. Here's the first time I disagreed with Dan—I would have pulled Woo after the leadoff walk based on how far he was missing his target and his body language during/after that batter. He was gassed, he's not used to the relief role and hadn't been stretched out to starter length, so even though he theoretically could have given you another frame or two, you need to adapt based on his obvious fatigue.
• Dan then relieves Woo with one out, runners at 2nd and 3rd, and Springer up. New pitcher is Eduard Bazardo, who had been pretty reliable during the season but had been used A LOT during the ALCS. Critics are saying Dan should instead have brought in Andres Muñoz, the All-Star closer, as this was a potential inflection point of the game and thus the series and you want your best reliever out there even if it is only the 7th inning. There's validity to this argument, more because of the repetition the Blue Jays already had in seeing Bazardo versus the comparative paucity of ABs against Muñoz, but there's also validity to Dan's choice to keep Muñoz in reserve for the 8th and 9th—you weren't going to get more than two innings out of him for sure, and aside from a solo homer given up to Vladimir Guerrero Jr in Game 4, which the Jays were already winning handily, Bazardo had gotten the job done. My thought at this point was that they would intentionally walk Springer—Springer has the 3rd-most postseason homers than anyone over his career, he has a knack for it, plus he's probably not running all that well even though it's been a few days since he was hit in the kneecap by an errant fastball. True, it would mean putting the go-ahead run on base with Vlad Jr. on deck, and irritant Nathan Lukes coming to bat, but it's a pick-your-poison circumstance and I felt hoping for a ground ball out of Lukes was preferable to pitching to Springer. Springer, of course, homered to give the Jays the lead.
• Dan brought Muñoz on in the 8th, as planned, but he wasn't sharp and escaped only with the aid of a double-play turned behind him. Would he have been better if he's not come in with the team trailing in the score? Eh, I doubt it mattered in this case.

The M's failed to score in the 9th and the season was history.

So, was Dan wrong to bring in Bazardo? If he brings in Muñoz instead, that means Muñoz can't pitch the 9th (unless he somehow had two straight 4- or 5-pitch innings; highly unlikely) and you have to assume the score gets no better than the two-run lead the M's were then sitting on. Someone else, then? Well, Matt Brash had been used nearly as often as Bazardo had, but could have been an option. Otherwise... otherwise you play with fire. Carlos Vargas? Fuck, no. Emerson Hancock or Luke Jackson, the mopup guys? Starting pitcher Luis Castillo? Probably the only other viable choice, but he'd have needed a lot of time to get ready.

Barring having the foresight to get Castillo warming up an inning prior, Dan's options were Bazardo, Brash, or burn Muñoz and have Bazardo or Brash pitch the 9th, when they'd very likely see Springer again. I don't fault him.

The real spot where it might have mattered more was the first choice, pulling Kirby for Woo to start the 5th. I like Woo, so I was happy to get him in the game, but in retrospect, that was the mistake. Try to get another inning from Kirby, then go to Woo, and maybe you get to the 8th still ahead. Maybe.

Just saying it isn't as cut and dry as the pundits at the Athletic, the Times, BlueSky, and elsewhere would have us believe. When Carlos Vargas is a key part of your bullpen you're already in trouble. Next year, if the M's are fortunate enough to be in a similar bind, Dan will have more experience under his managerial belt and might have that foresight to ready Castillo (or next year's analogue) well ahead of time. Or, hopefully, his standard relief options will be more robust.

Besides, the real point at which the Mariners lost the series was the previous night, when they grounded into two inning-ending bases-loaded double-plays. And struck out 13 times. Worry about that stuff going forward.