PITTSBURGH – Much has been made over the Pirates’ recent lineup decisions and their philosophy of resting their core group of players to ensure that those players stay as healthy and productive as they possibly can throughout the remainder of the season.
There has been a wave of criticism regarding Clint Hurdle’s decision to start the light-hitting Pedro Florimon at shortstop in the second game of last night’s double-header instead of starting either Jordy Mercer or Jung-Ho Kang, who the Pirates say were rested to avoid playing back-to-back games. Hurdle defended his decision prior to the game this afternoon, noting that both games one and two had an even amount of everyday players.
“[Regarding the lineups], Ramirez wasn’t in the first game, Cervelli wasn’t in the first game, Marte wasn’t in the first game – I believe they are starters for us,” Hurdle said. “It’s not like it was two different lineups. If you actually study and follow our club, the lineup for [left-handed pitcher Jon Lester] was kind of like the lineup we have for a lot of the left-handed pitchers, with the exception of Florimon – and that’s because we didn’t want Mercer playing back-to-back games.”
It remains to be seen what the true impact of the Pirates’ resting plan will have going forward. There isn’t much statistical support on the surface that significantly points to this philosophy as being a real difference-maker, but the injury-prevention aspect is evident – the Pirates have stayed healthier than a large majority of other teams in the Majors. Hurdle acknowledged that this is still not a perfect science and that the organization is still working on ways to better quantify how this philosophy affects performance. However, the Pirates’ management team is encouraged by the results up to this point of the season.
“We believe in what we’re doing and that’s why we continue to do it and I think we are getting good results from it,” Hurdle explained. “It’s not making a lot of sense to some people outside of the clubhouse, but it’s making sense to the players, it’s making sense to us and the results have been good.”
** With the season coming closer to an end and the implications each game holds towards catching the Cardinals in the Central division, Hurdle doesn’t believe that there will be a need for many more down days for the everyday players.
“I think we’ve put ourselves in a position where we could be looking at maybe one more day off for one guy if needed. Others, it’s just match-ups.”
