Phillies’ disastrous Jhoan Duran usage makes Andrew Miller’s 2016 performance for Guardians look even better

It’s impossible to talk about the 2016 postseason without talking about Andrew Miller. 

Even though the Guardians ended up losing to the Cubs in the World Series, Miller etched his name into Cleveland lore forever with a dominant postseason. He ended up pitching in 10 of the 15 games the Guardians played in that October and had a 1.40 ERA. 

When the dust settled, he finished the postseason with 19 1/3 innings under his belt (the second-most on Cleveland’s staff) along with an American League Championship Series MVP. 

He also appeared at pretty much every point in the late innings. Three times in the fifth inning, two times in the sixth inning, four times in the seventh inning and one in the eighth. 

A lot has changed in MLB in the 10 years since, but manager Terry Francona’s usage of Miller still stands out as one of the best bullpen usages that every team seems to try to replicate at some point in October. 

The latest example of that came on Tuesday when Phillies interim manager Don Mattingly went to closer Jhoan Duran in the seventh inning to try to record a three out save against the Atlanta Braves in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series. 

It worked for five outs, but the sixth out proved to be elusive for Duran, who allowed a single and hit by pitch before giving up a go-ahead three-run home run to Austin Riley. 

That ended up putting the Phillies behind the eight-ball on Wednesday in a must-win game. Although the Phillies came back late and won, they were forced to send rookie Andrew Painter out for a third inning to close out the game as opposed to having Duran. 

Jhoan Duran’s rough outing for the Phillies on Tuesday made us appreciate Andrew Miller even more

Francona set the tone with Miller in the first game of the 2016 postseason when he called on Miller in the fifth inning of Game 1 of the ALDS, and he responded with two scoreless innings with four strikeouts. 

Miller ended up working multiple innings in all of his appearances in the postseason, and appeared in four of the five games in the ALCS. And he backed all that up by not allowing an earned run until the World Series.

But don’t let Miller’s high usage rate fool you — the Guardians’ bullpen was an absolute weapon that season. Meanwhile, the Phillies ‘pen is running on fumes, so Duran’s unconventional usage was borne out of necessity. 

The Phillies are going to need to use Duran at some point in tomorrow’s must-win game. Even if he does well, his series opening outing shows he has a long way to go before he can be in the same category as Miller. 

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