Yankees hope rested relievers key to postseason success

NEW YORK (AP) — Aroldis Chapman threw just 70 pitches in September.

Alone among major league teams, the Yankees never used a pitcher three days in a row during the regular season.

A bullpen featuring Chapman, Zack Britton, Adam Ottavino, Chad Green and Tommy Kahnle is a relief for New York fans and fear-inducing for opponents, a baseball Cerberus, the mythical multi-headed dog with snakes and a serpent protruding.

"I just think it's a luxury to have it happen this way," Ottavino said. "Luckily, we took care of business this year and got a nice lead and they were able to kind of stagger our appearances a little bit heading down the stretch. I think it's just good because we're expecting a big workload here in October."

If ever relievers were ready and rested during the postseason, it is this group as the Yankees head into the AL Championship Series against Houston or Tampa Bay starting Saturday. And now they have four more days to rest up, increasingly important in a postseason in which none of their starters pitched into the sixth.

New York's bullpen had a 2.03 ERA in the Division Series sweep of Minnesota, allowing three runs and 10 hits in 13 1/3 innings with 16 strikeouts and seven walks — their biggest weakness. And that is in an October of bullpens blowups across the Division Series, where "relief" pitchers entered Tuesday with a discomforting 5.85 ERA.

While Mariano Rivera was a key to the Yankees' five World Series titles from 1996-2009, general manager Brian Cashman has tried to put together a seemingly bottomless bullpen in Aaron Boone's two seasons as manager.

"When you get into these postseason games, especially when you have some off days sprinkled in, you don't worry as much about workload," Boone said last fall. "You just kind of weigh what matchups...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Yankees-hope-rested-relievers-key-to-postseason-14502162.php