Six man Rotation?

by craig on Aug 23, 2006 6:09 AM EDT in News and Rumors

The Marlins are contemplating going to a six man rotation.

Looking at a stretch of 20 games in 20 days beginning Friday, manager Joe Girardi and pitching coach Rick Kranitz are weighing the merits of using an extra starter. Nothing has been decided, but the Marlins will monitor their young pitchers.

"If the guys are feeling good we may just stay with the five, but if we see one guy or two guys have to be pushed a little bit, we'll slide somebody in there," Kranitz said.

The team has a day off on Thursday, so the five man rotation should remain in place until the next rotation.

I expect that the team will go to six men after that, at least for a couple of the rotations. Olsen in his last three starts has shown signs that he has hit the wall or is about to. That could be just three unfortunate starts or then again, it may be more than that. It all bears watching.

If the team does indeed go to a six man rotation I would expect for Moehler to get the nod. Mitre is always a possibility but Big Moe pitched very well in his last start.

By the time this decision comes around it will be after Sept. 1 and the rosters will have been expanded. At this point the Marlins are only looking to bring up 4 to 5 players. The reason they won't be going to the full 40 is that they want to evaluate how the rookies, especially position players, make it through September for the first time.

So expect most of the call-ups to be pitchers in order to give some relief to the young arms. The position players, will be own their own for the most part.