I think it's overblown what we did with our pitching staff. Our starters pitched 6+ innings in 19 of our 71 games. If you take out games were our starter lasted less than 2 innings because he was getting hit, that's 33% of our games were the starter went 6+ innings. Starters went 5 or more innings in 33 of our games.
Truth is our starting pitching was falling apart and we had to do something drastic. From the beginning of April thru end of the year Pollo and Lindgren had and ERA around 5. Graveman and Fitts both had around 3.50. Fitts didn't even start until mid-May. Girodo didn't start the long relief sessions until the post season. Before the SECT he had only thrown 2+ innings 4 times. Girodo pitched more innings in the final month than he did in the first 3 months of the season combined.
I give all the credit in the world to our coaching staff for doing what they did, but I'm certain they would have loved to had a true ace that could have eat up 6+ innings late in the season.
