Remember that last year was cancelled early due to COVID, then many summer leagues were cancelled. So it had been 2 years since many guys had thrown a decent workload. Lemonis’s plan with Bednar, MacLeod, and Sims was to build them slowly and make sure they are fresh for regionals, supers, and CWS. And by limiting their pitches, it gave additional innings to a bullpen suffering from an increased roster size. We had guys who simply needed mound time. Those additional innings were great for Tepper, Tullar, Stone Simmons, Chase Patrick, etc.

The Bianco method would have been to pitch Bednar 7-8, and Stone Simmons wouldn’t pitch at all because he’s not ready. Lemonis pitched Bednar 5 and let Stone Simmons get his feet wet against SEC pitching and develop into a solid option. So Bianco enters tournament play with a thin bullpen and worn out aces.

Rocker, Leiter, Hoglund, and Nikhazy pitched too many innings early in my opinion. I said it all year.