"All I know is that I watched too many games last season where the 5th or 6th inning came around, Bush was in the 90 pitch range, and started falling apart. At this point Ned should have yanked him but didn't, and he ended up giving up multiple runs and blowing games." This is a common criticism fans have of just about all mangers. It's true that starting pitchers generally lose effectiveness the deeper they get into games. And for a mediocre pitcher like Bush, there probably is no need to let him go 100+ pitches very often. But your memory seems to be failing you with regard to Bush being more susceptible to a late game collapse. In fact, it appears that the opposite was true in 2008: http://www.baseball-refer...amp;year=2008#situa-innng Bush basically dominated in the 6th and 7th last year. Some fans just have this notion that managers should immediately pull mediocre pitchers if even one base runner reaches after 5 innings. And any run given up by a mediocre starting pitcher after the 5th is a run that could have been saved, the theory seems to go. But if you effectively limit your 3-5 pitchers to 5 inning starts, you'll be giving up plenty of 6th inning runs because your bullpen is going to die.