My only quibble is that it is possible that the decline is coincidental rather than cause/effect. It is only one instance and while very suggestive, at this point the most we can do is consider it an unproved hypothesis of cause/effect.

I wonder if there are other instances of Harang being used like this and if there was any similar result. Or of other pitchers having similar experiences.

None of that disputes the point that Baker used his staff badly.

When Cueto and Volquez go down with season-ending injuries, it's not bad luck, it's Dustiny!

I don't understand why Bray didn't start the 11th. Pads had Carlin, a switch hitter, and Gerut, a lefty, due up. Your bullpen is already shot, they can save Fogg for tomorrow, they really needed to get out of this game. It is much easier to make these moves looking back but this was questionable.

Dusty had already seen Weathers and Cordero blow leads in the 8th and 9th. I guess one should assume that any pitcher, even one as bad as Josh Fogg, can hold a 2 run lead with the bottom of a teams order coming up. Now when Giles came up with 2 outs I like the move to Bray. Dusty tried to save him to have one fresh arm in the pen the next day but he had to go for the win there. Then Giles singled of course and screwed everything up.

There's always that risk of a game going forever, but did anyone think Harang would have to go 4 innings? Sure this game was in Petco but still. The outlash would've been a lot worse had he thrown in Cueto and done damage to his arm. So at this point what where the other options? Basically it's Harang or a position player (who were all used up so a pitcher would've had to play the OF). Dusty should've just told Harang to toss it down the middle and see what happens.

So again I don't really blame Dusty for bringing in Harang, his mistake came in the 11th. The biggest mistake though might be on that wasn't even mentioned and was the one that really got to me. Not only do they let Harang throw 4 innings on short rest, but they let him pitch his normal spot in the rotation afterwards and start him on 3 days rest. He should've had 4 or 5 days off minimum and that was inexcusable by Dusty.

the Pirates had a pretty good offense last year.

Hands, exactly my sentiments, and it is in there though not as explicitly as your comment. The error really occurred when Baker burned his whole bullpen after the 12th inning, and had no other relievers to bring in.

After that, he had to go to a starter. Cueto would have started the next game, so he had the most rest, and hadn't logged a ton of innings up to that point. Going with Cueto for a max of 2 innings and then potentially to Harang for 1-2 innings might have been excusable given the circumstances, but to throw your ace out there on 2.5 days rest, to throw 4 innings, and then start him 3.5 days later is asinine.

I was actually at this game (one of the benefits of having a sister that lives two blocks from PetCo and has a partial season ticket package), and at the time, even being fairly aware of the Reds pitching situation, I wasn't that shocked by the decision to bring in Harang in the 12th, once they'd gotten that far. As you pointed out, the management of the bullpen to that point may have been arguable, especially given the eventual length of the game, but once he got there, picking Harang over Cueto or Volquez wasn't that shocking.

What was shocking to me, however, was the decision to not use Cueto AT ALL, instead eventually going to Volquez to lose the game. This looks even worse when you realize that the Reds were off that Monday, flying to Pittsburgh for a series starting Tuesday. Instead of bringing in Harang to relieve on 2 days rest, having Volquez relieve on 1 day rest (he also pitched well in a rain-delayed game that I also was at that Friday night) and the starting Cueto that Tuesday on 6 days rest, he could have brought in Cueto to relieve on 3 days rest, then gone to Volquez at the end saving Harang to start that Tuesday on full rest.

If he'd had to put a starter out there on Monday, saving Cueto makes a little more sense. With the off day, it makes it quite a bit more questionable.

Way back when I was a kid, the 5th guy in the bullpen was the mop-up man.

I agree that further tests would help determine if this was coincidence. Make a list of starting pitchers who had a relief appearance of say 2+ innibgs, on less than 4 days rest, then made the next start less than 4 days after the relief game. See if there's a pattern, or what percent of the time bad things happen later

I agree with many commenters that it's hard to tie Harang's troubles directly to Dusty. And we won't know until next year if he's learned to use his staff better.
Perhaps the real mistake here was hiring someone with Dusty's track record to manage young pitchers. You won't know if he's done REAL damage to your pitching staff until it's too late.
That's not to completely rag on Dusty. But there are a LOT of prospective and former managers out that don't carry the risk of Dusty. He may not be so bad with young pitchers, but if you're running a big-league ballclub, can you afford to take that chance?

This essay is, as far as I am concerned, a magnificent exemplar of the value of the BP approach to the game, and in the process the final nail in the coffin of Baker's reputation as a major league manager. It is scrupulously fair to Baker in examining all the variables one can think of that could explain Baker's usage of Harang, and of other factors that could have contributed to his (overall) dismal season, and it is still overwhelmingly damning of Baker, as far as this writer is concerned. But then, we all knew this, didn't we? Yet Baker is still managing. It is sad that such irresponsible usage of a warrior like Aaron Harang (I don't use the term lightly, look at Harang's annual IP average over the past five years) had to be the conclusive factor in this final destroyer of Baker's credibility. I very much hope Harang is not done as a major league starter, and that his virtues are appreciated by another team that plucks him out of the living hell that Cincinnati has become for pitching talent.

Bottom line, starters are starters and relievers are relievers. Tis much better to use up the pen than your #1 starter.

Okay, wow. I have a lot to say about this.

First, I listened to the first 8.5 innings of this game on the radio. Heard the Reds fall hopelessly behind with Belisle's early struggles, fight their way back, Weathers blew it in the 8th, took another lead in the 9th, Cordero comes on (I think no blown saves to that point in the season), probably 3 minutes left in the game and I had to get out of my car and take my kid inside to the hockey game. (Hey, it was the playoffs and Cincinnati won the minor league hockey championship; our only title in memory in any sport.) Imagine coming out of the hockey game 2 hours later, turning on the car, radio comes on, and Aaron Harang is pitching????

I actually thought the move made some sense at the time (I missed all the business about how they got to that point, using up Fogg and Bray and so on, and of course, no benefit of hindsight) but I think you have to give any manager some leeway and credit for knowing his players' personalities, emotions, etc., in a way we never can from the outside. Cueto was a very young, very inexperienced, and very unknown commodity at that point in the season; he started the season strong and then a streak of very shaky outings. It makes sense to me that you might not want to break his routine. Even Volquez had considerably more major league experience. Let's face it, they are people, not Strat cards, and a manager (of people, in any business) needs to know his people.

One other comment, if teams really saved their long relievers the way this essay suggests, they would not get into a single game all year, unless you had one of those "every two or three years" 18-inning games.

Last thing, in response to the first reader comment: you might think you would demand a trade if Dusty was your manager, but the players all seem to love him and love playing for him. So, no, if you were a player, you probably wouldn't. Guess not too many of them are BP readers.