I believe players perform better when they know their role, especially relievers. Duran, the closer, doesn’t pitch in 5 days and he’s put in to a game in the 7th inning when we’re behind. It’s odd and totally fair to ask why when other guys (alcala for instance) pitch in the 6-7th inning time frame.
Then the idea that a 2-3 run deficit is a time to throw arguably your shakiest reliever to save the rest of the arms is kind of wild to me. Its mid august. It didn’t end up costing any more runs but it nearly did. I think the time for punting on games is running out when we’re not many games behind/ahead. The tying run was up twice with two home run threats (Santana and Miranda) at bat.