Question on the weekend rotation

[starkvegasdawg]

Maybe this has been addressed before, but I shall ask it again. I know typically both teams throw their ace on Friday night, second best pitcher on Saturday, and third best on Sunday so you always 1 vs 1, 2 vs 2, and 3 vs 3. If you are facing a team with an undeniable ace on the mound Friday night, would it not make sense to save your ace for the Saturday or Sunday game and flip flop one of the two other pitchers? If you lose that Friday night game with your best pitcher on the mound then it becomes exponentially harder to win the series. I could almost see swapping your Friday and Sunday starters. Maybe you get lucky and get to their ace and win Friday night. Then you still have your ace ready to go Sunday to try and win or sweep the series. If you lose Friday, then you have your ace available to try and go for the series win or at least salvage one game and not get swept.

[Gutter Cobreh]

At what point do you learn that logic is not accepted on this board???***

I'm still trying to process not wanting a hard-hitting safety on our football team and here you are throwing out how to give us the best odds of winning a baseball series....

[Todd4State]

To me that is looking at how to salvage and not how to win. Normally I think the best thing to do is pitch your ace. Plus if you move your ace the other teams will figure out that you are moving your ace to Saturday before too long. You never know if the other ace is going to be off or if your ace can outduel them. And if you lose game one with your number two and your ace is off you already lost the series.

[louisvilledawg]

To me that is looking at how to salvage and not how to win. Normally I think the best thing to do is pitch your ace. Plus if you move your ace the other teams will figure out that you are moving your ace to Saturday before too long. You never know if the other ace is going to be off or if your ace can outduel them. And if you lose game one with your number two and your ace is off you already lost the series.

Yet if you win the game with your number two and your ace is on... Boom. Series win and go for the sweep.

[tcdog70]

i think in certain situation it makes sense. getting your ass swept is what sucks. At this point we need win ever how we can. Being smart helps.

[shoeless joe]

We've been throwing our ace on fridays and have won all but one SEC series...but let's continue to fix what's not broken

[starkvegasdawg]

We've been throwing our ace on fridays and have won all but one SEC series...but let's continue to fix what's not broken

I was not advocating a change. I was asking if there was a reason why this was not done from time to time to improve your odds of winning a series. Since every coach seemingly always throws ace against ace I was wondering if there was some deep seeded baseball wisdom I was not privy to. I didn't stay in a holiday inn express last night and therefore did now know the answer.

[ZedFedder]

So much of baseball is mental. So switching guys up may affect their play. Also, if you throw a guy who threw Sunday on Friday, you aren't doing him justice with rest. So a lot of factors to consider.

[HoopsDawg]

With this team, we need KP to eat a bunch of innings on Friday so we can patch together pitching the next 2 days.

[msstate7]

With this team, we need KP to eat a bunch of innings on Friday so we can patch together pitching the next 2 days.

I agree, but you could look at it another way... use best BP arms Friday, hopefully pilk gives you 7-8 Saturday, and then use Friday's BP arms again Sunday

[bulldogcountry1]

Pilkington is good enough to give us a good chance to win on any given Friday. I'd say he gives us us a 40% chance to win against any SEC ace with Self and Price on the back end. You generally need only a few runs to win on Friday, and we definitely have enough offense to give us a chance against anyone. After that, we have shown to be very effective against anyone else on Saturday and Sunday.

So, if we move him to Saturday, what are our chances on Friday? I would say less than 10%. The next question how much do we gain if we pitch him on Saturday? Enough to make up the difference?

[starkvegasdawg]

If this were to be tried I say pitch him on Sunday. Instead of 1-2-3 reverse that to 3-2-1. Now, that decision would be easier if your entire staff had not been decimated with injuries and you were reduced to starting your CF on Sunday.