Managing a team down the stretch in the regular season is one of the toughest things to do in baseball. Even as the games are becoming more important, players are starting to feel the fatigue that comes with playing an entire 162-game season. Managers have to be conscious of how much their players will have left in the tank come playoff time — and sometimes they'll have to worry about exacerbating injuries that could keep their stars out of the playoffs entirely.
That's why there are prominent stars all around the league who could see their playing time limited over the last few weeks of the season. Here are the players who will be resting more often to try to preserve what they have left in the tank.
RHP Gerrit Cole, Pittsburgh Pirates
Cole's next start will be skipped as a precautionary measure. It's a good way to keep his regular-season innings in check, especially since he will almost certainly get the ball in the Wild Card game if (as seems likely) that's where the Pirates end up. Still, it's a tough start to skip for the Pirates, who are in the middle of a brutal NL Central race.
RHP Matt Harvey, New York Mets
Matt Harvey is supposed to be the Mets' ace pitcher and postseason trump card, but his agent, Scott Boras, threw a wrench in all that earlier this month. Boras produced a figure of 180 innings as a limit for Harvey, who is coming off of Tommy John surgery. That limit would effectively eliminate him from postseason play. The Mets and Harvey have worked out a limited schedule for the power pitcher, which would have him skipping another start on top of the ones that he and the Mets had already agreed to pass by. In fact, Harvey's limitations may stay in place during the postseason: rumors are swirling that the Mets will agree to a per-game pitch cap in postseason play, possibly as low as 60 pitches.
DH Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees
A-Rod is 40 now, and while he's been doing quite well this season, he's needed to take days off fairly often. Yanks manager Joe Girardi has gone on record saying that he will continue to rest Rodriguez. A-Rod will likely skip all three games against the Mets (since those will be played in a National League park), plus at least one or two other games down the stretch.
3B David Wright, New York Mets
Another Met coming off of an injury, and another player who will likely see serious limitations on his playing time as the season winds down. David Wright's injury history hasn't been good, so it makes sense that the Mets are being careful. The team's current plan leaves Wright out of the lineup on day games that follow night games, and you can probably expect Wright to skip additional starts on top of those. The goal is to get Wright to the postseason, when (presumably) the extra rest will allow him to play all of almost all of the games.
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