Nats manager Jim Riggleman has said a few times this season that he needed to scale back his use of reliever Tyler Clippard. The 25-year-old pitched so well through the early part of May that his presence was an almost nightly requirement for the Nats to get a win. The rest of the bullpen – save closer Matt Capps – just didn’t inspire the same amount of confidence.
But that workload seemed to have Clippard at the breaking point in recent days. In his previous 7 2/3 innings before last night’s appearance against the Mets, Clippard had allowed 10 hits, seven walks and six earned runs. He was also charged with four blown saves and three losses in those seven games. For what it’s worth, he earned four wins during that stretch, too.
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On April 30, Clippard was 3-0 with six holds and just one blown save. He pitched in 12 of 23 games in April – 18 innings in all – with a .50 ERA. Unfortunately, that put him on pace for 127 innings for the season and a date with Dr. James Andrews. That number has dropped even as Clippard has appeared in nine of 18 games this month. He is down to a 112-inning pace.
Only eight relievers pitched more than 80 innings in 2009 with Chicago White Sox pitcher D.J. Carrasco leading the way at 89 1/3. Both J.P. Howell (Tampa Bay) and Josh Rupe (Texas) pitched 89 1/3 in 2008. The last pitcher to top 100 innings was Scott Proctor of the Mets in 2006. Only six pitchers have crossed the century mark since 2000 with Steve Sparks’ combined 107 innings for Oakland and Detroit leading the way in 2003. But he was a knuckleball pitcher. Cincinnati’s Scott Sullivan threw 106 1/3 innings in 2000 and 103 1/3 the next year. But he threw submarine style. Guillermo Mota – with a conventional pitching motion – pitched 105 innings for the Dodgers in 2003. After Wednesday’s win, Riggleman said he still needs to manage Clippard’s innings – but only to a point.
“Still learning with Clip, you know. Maybe some of the ineffectiveness lately – if we can call it that – is the guy hasn’t had enough work. I feel like I overworked him early. But he held up good with it and maybe we need to get him in there more … .He did a great job and then we really backed off. But as I backed off he’d go two or three days where the game situation didn’t call on him. Then when I put him in there that’s when he’s been getting hit a little bit and not throwing strikes consistently. So I’d like to have him in an area where he gets 90 innings, 100 innings. He was on pace to probably be in the 130 range. Now he’s probably on pace for 115, 120. But we want to have him on pace where he’s in that 95 to 100 range. But again if I back him off he may not be effective. We’ll just have to see how we go.”
