I'm much more comfortable hoping for this than hoping to have success with 4 innings of bullpen for the first time in major league history (I'm assuming it would be the first time but someone can do some stats and prove me wrong here). the starters sucking a little less has much better odds of happening.
i mean, the starters should suck a little less, because no staff has ever sucked this much for an entire season. but regarding the bullpen use - just look at the numbers. no one is talking about running hdh out there for 350 innings (really, dh have very defined roles and are not going to get overused unless the royals win about 120 close games, the only one that might get overused is herrera, and that's just a yost issue, not a starters suck issue), it's just a matter of using some of the pitchers that on most teams normally sit on the bench for weeks at a time and maybe pitch 30 innings a year. use those guys a little more and the starters a little less.
no idea if any team has every used a pen for 4 innings a game before, but i can calculate the innings needed and see that it wouldn't strain this pen at all. maybe it'd strain the pen's rep, since people aren't going to be talking about how it's the best pen in history when pino, morales, finnegan, frasor, etc are combining for 250 innings, but would you rather have those guys eating a few more innings or the shitty starters hitting their third time through the batting order every time out?
