Guardians' late rally poked another hole in Red Sox's suddenly shaky playoff bullpen plan

The final week of the MLB season always features plenty of altered and adjusted pitching plans. 

Normally the one consistent throughout the drumbeat of the 162-game MLB season is a team’s pitching plan; regardless of whether a team has an ace on the mound or is going with pitching madness, the goal is always to get the best position to win while taking it a day at a time. 

But that's a bit different this week.

While some teams are playing out the string and giving their starters one last opportunity to pitch before drifting off into the winter, the teams that have already clinched are stuck in the limbo of trying to cover the now while also preparing for the postseason. 

It’s not like football or basketball where you can just throw random backups out there. Every inning needs to be covered, and there’s only so many innings you can give to pitchers who aren’t a part of your postseason plans. 

Even if the Guardians won’t be in that position for a couple days (even if they clinch a postseason spot later today the American League Central race still won’t be settled, the Boston Red Sox's already know their postseason fate by virtue of being all but locked into the American League’s No. 5 seed. 

We got an early example of how that could change their pitching plans on Monday when manager Andy Tracy pulled budding ace Peyton Tolle after five innings, and we got another example of it later in the game whenTracy went to Erik Miller in the ninth inning of a tied game instead of going to Aroldis Chapman… and Miller gave up the go-ahead run on a Nathaniel Lowe sacrifice fly. 

The Red Sox are already playing with their postseason plans in mind, and those plans just got a bit more convoluted thanks to Miller’s rough outing. 

The Red sox's bullpen struggles could help the Guardians in their quest to make the postseason

While Miller has largely been excellent since the Red Sox acquired him in August, he’s now allowed a run in three straight appearances and seems to be falling down manager Andy Tracy’s trust tree. 

Miller opened his outing by hitting Chase DeLauter on the forearm with a pitch before surrendering a single to Jo Adell that was followed by Lowe’s sacrifice fly. 

After the game, Tracy said that Miller was “working through some things,” which was obvious to everyone in the ballpark and watching at home. 

Those struggles set up what should be an interesting last two games at Fenway Park. The Sox have two of their best pitchers going in the final two games of the series (Sonny Gray today and Ranger Suarez tomorrow), and it’s hard to believe the Red Sox are going to give them a ton of run in either of their starts. 

While the Guardians may not get a chance to benefit from Boston’s relief struggles in the postseason since Boston will likely be locked into the other side of the bracket, they can use it to their benefit over the next 48 hours as they work to nail down a postseason spot. 

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