It's definitely a tough thing to handle as a manager. Not that I recommend it, but if you go back through the game threads, you'll routinely see many (most?) people wanting Sale to pitch more because he's pitching great and the game is close and why would you remove him from this game when he's only at 93 pitches when the alternative (at the time) is Barnes?? As we saw at the end of the year, every win matters, so it's just as important to get the win in May as it is in September, and using Sale that extra inning in May could just be what gets them that extra win. But then you have to balance that out with not stressing his arm too much.Of course, game logs! The NP through July is pretty crazy. Just a handful of games under 110. My concern with that earlier in the season (one of the few things I laid directly at the feet of the manager) was that he’d already had a history of late fades. I wanted those bullets for last Thursday.
Edit: totally agree on the lineup portion of that post. It needs a tweak, not an overhaul.
Ideal world: the offense gets a lot better and Sale routinely wins games 7-2, so he only has to throw 90-95 pitches in a 6-inning start and the bullpen cruises the rest of the way. But....that's not how it worked this year.
For all the crap that Farrell gets...managing all this isn't easy.