Endurance factor

I was probably the only one sad in Minneapolis to see Livan go. Despite his abysmal ERA, I thought that he brought a few things to the club. My take is that he taught by example that grace under pressure can make a difference. They knew when they acquired him that the guy gave up a lot of hits, and he sure lived up to that end! But he was often able through his slow, calm style to get out of difficult situations, and despite all the hits he had the best record of the starting rotation at 10-8. Don't get me wrong - I take a healthy Liriano over his sage wisdom anyday, but lets not berate the guy for doing exactly what they said he would do.

But where I think they will miss Livan is in the endurance factor. Our young rotation seems to go the six innings for the win, and then they are done. I didn't have a lot of time, but I took a quick look at how many games the pitchers went into the 7th and the results were fairly interesting. Livan went into the 7th or further 11 of his 23 starts for 48%. Blackburn does well on this as well going 10 of his 22 starts for 45%. The rest are: Baker (33%) Perkins (18%) Slowey (24%) and Liriano (0% for obvious reasons). When I get time I want to redo it for going into the 8th inning.

My point? Considering how our bullpen is struggling and how they are being used heavily (Guerrier has played in 55 games), we should be looking for ways to strengthen and reorganize there. And quickly...