SHORTENING A BASEBALL GAME TO SIX INNINGS.

SHORTENING A BASEBALL GAME TO SIX INNINGS. One current strategy in baseball follows Gene Mauch’s approach of trying for an early lead. If a team can succeed in building a deep bullpen, with three or four shutdown relievers, it can choose to use them when it has a lead after six innings to hold the lead. A current phrase for this is “shortening the game to six innings”. I think Ron Gardenhire, as manager of the Minnesota Twins, has used this approach. I remember him using the brilliant Johan Santana to pitch multiple innings in relief in the middle of a number of games to hold a lead. (I have just checked and it was in 2002 and 2003.) Here, for example, is a February 24 article about the Kansas City Royals which says: “Manager Ned Yost is confident that if his Royals have a lead after six innings, the bullpen will hold it.” If you have been able to construct a good bullpen (which the Royals certainly had last year), then shortening a game is a way to exploit it.