The Day of Aces is over. Game 2 of the wild card series quickly snapped us back to the reality of one max-effort reliever after another in postseason baseball. Openers, quick hooks, matchups … and managers put on the hot seat with every decision.
Padres manager Mike Shildt and Tigers manager A.J. Hinch gave us lessons in bullpen management. One guy has the best bullpen in baseball. The other has the least swing-and-miss bullpen at his disposal. Guess who won?
Shildt has properly gone all Terry Francona circa 2016 with his bullpen weapon, Mason Miller. Hinch put a potential clincher in the hands of a rookie pitcher who had never pitched a meaningful late inning in his brief major league life. That’s why we have Game 3 in each of their wild card series.
Hinch overextends Tigers’ pen
Hinch showed us the cascade effect of lifting your No. 2 starter after three innings of one-hit ball. Asked why he wound up with Troy Melton pitching the eighth inning of a 1–1 game, Hinch said, “Just velo and the plus stuff.”
It was only the second time Melton pitched after the seventh inning. On the other occasion, the Tigers were leading 10–0. Garbage time.
Melton pitched at a time when the shadows at Progressive Field in Cleveland were making it difficult for hitters to pick up spin. The baseball in shadows looks like a gray mass, just like a fastball, without discernable spin or seams. Hitters are better off swinging at where the ball is, not where it might be going. They get fooled by wrinkles.
Melton does throw hard. And he did lean on his velo, throwing nine fastballs at an average speed of 98.7 mph among his 14 pitches.
Three of them were crushed for game-changing extra-base hits: home run by Bryan Rocchio, double by Steven Kwan, double by Daniel Schneeman. The Guardians put the game away, 6–1.
“We needed to extend the game,” Hinch said about using Melton. “He was going to get probably a couple innings if he could go to it. I needed [Kyle] Finnegan earlier in the game. Needed [Tyler] Holton earlier in the game.
“In the playoffs … it's going to be in any order. When we got to that point, I wasn’t going to go to Will [Vest]. We didn’t have the lead. And so we needed somebody to have the ball, and I love the velo against these guys. They obviously took some good swings off of him.”
The choices for Hinch, which included veterans Tommy Kahnle, Rafael Montero and Paul Sewald, exposed a problem for the manager: he does not have the deep, swing-and-miss bullpen that rewards multiple moves. Detroit’s bullpen was dead last in MLB in strikeouts per nine innings (7.7). It was 21st in strikeout-to-walk rate.
The Tigers are now 22–10 when they give the ball to Tarik Skubal and 66–66 when they try all others.
Shildt deploys MLB’s filthiest fireman
Shildt doesn’t have Hinch’s troubles about how to shut down the other team with four or five relievers. He pulled his starting pitcher, Dylan Cease, after just 11 outs. Not a problem. Shildt’s bullpen led the majors in ERA (3.06), wins (44) and WHIP (1.15). It is even better in the tournament because Shildt has unleashed Miller, the best bullpen weapon in baseball.
During the regular season Shildt used Miller 21 times, with 13 of those coming in the eighth inning. No more scripting. Shildt summoned Miller in the seventh in Games 1 and 2. All Miller did was strike out eight straight batters before nicking Michael Busch with a slider.
Miller brings the game to a halt. He tops out at 104 mph and throws a nasty Brad Lidge-quality slider that is the toughest single pitch to hit in baseball (.109), other than the slider of Seattle closer Andres Munoz (.103). Batters this year hit .058 against Miller with two strikes, the fifth lowest average since pitch tracking began in 1988.
Francona used Andrew Miller 10 times in the 2016 postseason—nine times between the fifth and seventh innings. He won the ALCS MVP because of three holds and one save. It was groundbreaking stuff.
Mason Miller is an even bigger managerial chess piece than Andrew Miller. Mason Miller has thrown 40 pitches the past two days. Back in May, when he was pitching for the Athletics, Miller pitched three days in a row. He threw 73 pitches in those three games.
104 MPH 🔥
— MLB (@MLB) October 1, 2025
Mason Miller is bringing the heat pitching on back-to-back days! #Postseason pic.twitter.com/S6TyC8G3iB
You don’t think in a win-or-go-home game Miller won’t be available a third straight day? Think again. The Cubs likely must go through the best reliever in baseball and the best bullpen in baseball if they want to advance. And Hinch will not be able to save Vest for a spot when he has the lead.
Welcome to baseball sudden death, when both teams face win-or-go-home games. These are rare treats. Over the past three years we have been gifted with only seven of those. (Home teams are 3–4.) The 14 starting pitchers averaged just 4 1/3 innings in those ultimate games, leaving more than half the outs to relievers.
But that’s baseball these days. When a season is on the line, so are the manager and his relievers.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Padres, Tigers Show Different Rules Apply to Different Bullpens.
