Lance Lynn to start for St. Louis Cardinals in Game 5 of NLCS – NLCS Update
St. Louis Cardinals on Monday, October 15, decided to keep the rotation unchanged for the National League Championship Series. Lance Lynn could not pitch four innings in Sunday’s Game 1 against the San Francisco Giants, prompting speculations that fatigue might force the Cardinals to have another pitcher for Game 5.
However, the Cardinals, for now, do not seem in any mood to affect that alteration. Part of the reason why there has been a bit of uncertainty surrounding this decision is the potential fatigue that may have factored into it.
"It's something that we have to be cognizant of," general manager John Mozeliak said. "I think getting the break into the bullpen at the end of the year did help him. But, clearly, when you go from the amount of innings that he had last year to where he's at, that's a lot of workload. But he is a horse. Hopefully it's not something that we have to run him out of gas."
It is to be mentioned here that Lynn has pitched only 11 innings so far in the playoffs. As for the regular season, he did not pitch more than 109 innings. That in effect, may raise questions if fatigue has really had anything to do with it.
Another reason that cannot be overlooked is that there has been a change of role for Lynn throughout the season. In the middle of the season, he was used as the reliever and then the role of starter was reassigned to him.
This fluctuation takes times to let the pitcher to adjust and readjust. Lynn, nonetheless, has so far tried to maintain consistency despite the change he had to witness throughout the season.
"That's not easy on anybody," manager Mike Matheny said. "He's had an opportunity to grow through some of the things we've thrown at him, like going to the 'pen.”
As the National League Championship Series progresses, it will be interesting to see if rotation is indeed kept unchanged. The Cardinals, nonetheless, will try to have a smooth flow so as to avoid any unlikely situation as far as the rotation is concerned.
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