Clay Harbor

So, you know, everybody talks about the pitchers.

It used to be the reputation was a five-and-fly guy.

You threw five innings, you looked at the manager, and you say, you know, I need somebody else out there.

That was looked down upon or even scorned when I was playing, but now –

It comes, you know, if you get five, five and a third, five and two thirds innings, they think you're a hero most of the time.

The reality is that if you can take it into the seventh inning, you can really help your bullpen, especially over the long haul.

You know, early in the season, you find these guys in the bullpen and they're pretty strong and they're going to get people out in key situations and all of those things.

Then you're going to get to the 35 appearance mark, maybe the 40 appearance mark.

And all those guys that were getting guys out in April and May suddenly stopped getting them out.

maybe toward the middle, toward the end of July, because you're at that 40 appearance mark.

You can wear down a bullpen pretty quickly, and the starting rotation is the best way to keep a bullpen sound.

With that in mind, we've got some guys who are capable of doing it.

Now what they have to do is go out and get them into the seventh inning.

I think that's probably a goal.

You might come short of that quite a bit.

But if you can get to the seventh or maybe a little bit beyond that, you can really help that bullpen in the long run.

And I think that is the concern.

So I think, Marshall, you're right.

That is one of the areas that most people are concerned about as far as this team goes.

I think the bullpen is stronger.