Smizik: AAA call-up best bet for 5th starter
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With his spot in the Pirates' rotation at stake, Tony Armas did the expected and pitched at a totally unacceptable level Thursday at PNC Park. That was the good news for Pirates. The bad news would have been a good performance. If that had happened, the semi-famous Charley Feeney Rule would have been invoked.
Feeney, who covered baseball superbly for about 40 years, with the final 20 or so coming at the Post-Gazette, had a time-proven theory about pitchers of Armas' ilk. He formed it after closely watching Luke Walker, a pitcher of much potential but little production on some of those Pirates powerhouses in the early 1970s. On the rare occasion when Walker started and won, Feeney called it a "three-loss win."
What he meant by that was the Pirates would be so heartened by the prospect of Walker finding himself, they would give him three more starts -- all of which would be miserable.
Armas did the Pirates a favor by throwing a 40-pitch first-inning against the Marlins and being otherwise ineffective. Had he done well, manager Jim Tracy would have kept him in the rotation and quite possibly given him three more starts. Armas' history, recent and otherwise, tells us the results in all likelihood would not have been favorable for the Pirates.
Armas, 29, is in the bullpen, where, presumably, he can do less harm.
In explaining Armas' problem, Tracy said, "The ball's not coming out of his hand the way it's supposed to." Yeah, but it sure was coming off the bats the way it's supposed to.
A word about pitchers designated, like Armas, as fifth starters. They're not supposed to be very good. If they were good, they wouldn't be fifth starters. If a team's fifth starter is a winner, there's a good chance that team is headed for the postseason and possibly winning it. On a team as offensively inept as the Pirates, fifth starters, journeymen at best, really don't have much of a chance to be a winner. If they can sometimes keep their team in the game, they're doing a decent job.
The logical successor to Armas is Shawn Chacon, who made the Thursday game a win-win for the Pirates. Not only did Armas mercifully pitch himself out of the rotation, but Chacon was so superb in relief, holding the Marlins scoreless for five innings, that the Pirates came back to win the game.
Chacon, 29, is the most experienced of the candidates to succeed Armas, with 115 major-league starts, and the most successful, with 39 wins. He won 11 games with Colorado in 2003 and was 7-3 with the Yankees in the second half of 2005 -- after going 1-7 with the Rockies.
But, by pitching so well in relief this season, he has made himself too valuable, particularly to Tracy. In discussions on the matter yesterday, Tracy all but ruled Chacon out of the job, which, because of an open date Monday, will not need to be filled until Saturday. With Matt Capps and Salomon Torres being such an effective eighth and ninth inning tandem, Tracy sees Chacon being part of that group as a seventh-inning reliever, a role he has filled on occasion this season.
"The seventh inning of a game is huge," Tracy said. "With a one-run lead and you're trying to get to the final six outs of the game and all of a sudden you can't do it because you don't feel you have all the pieces you need to do so. To me that's awfully important."
Considering that Tracy spoke with great conviction on the subject, look for Chacon to stay in the bullpen in a variety of roles but more often as the seventh inning setup guy.
Other candidates to replace Armas are Marty McLeary, currently pitching in the bullpen, and Indianapolis starting pitchers John Van Benschoten, 27, Bryan Bullington, 26, and Sean Burnett, 24.
McLeary had two nice starts in September, but at 32, he's a dark horse. So is Burnett, who not only isn't pitching as well as Van Benschoten and Bullington, but who would give the Pirates four left-handers in the rotation.
It will come down to Van Benschoten and Bullington, the team's No. 1 draft choices in 2001 and '02. Both went to spring training as questionable because of various surgeries. Both, though, have shown themselves to be fit with their work for Indianapolis. Bullington is 6-1 with a 2.40 earned run average. Van Benschoten is 3-3 with a 2.47 ERA. Van Benschoten went through a stretch of four starts where he allowed only one earned run.
It's possible Chacon might be the best option to replace Armas. But it should be Bullington or Van Benschoten. Both represent large investments on the part of the team. It's time to find out about both.
Whoever gets the call, the other might not be far behind. The way Paul Maholm, with his 5.67 ERA, and Zach Duke, against whom opponents are batting a whopping .340, are pitching, they also need to be examined under the light of the Feeney Rule.
First Published May 18, 2007 11:14 pm
