Why not a Scott / Lopez piggyback for 2-3 rounds

[HelenaEngineer]

Brandon Hyde clearly has a lack of confidence right now in Tanner Scott, and it is  justified. He has walked 16 batters in 17 innings, which is a big problem in high leverage late inning appearances. Three of his last five appearances have been 1/3 of an inning and he has a total of 2.2 over his last five appearances. It is also apparent that the Orioles are a much better team when Scott is a reliable late innings pitcher, something they really need. Last year, he averaged 1 BB per 2 innings, not great, but half of this year's rate. He has the ability to dominate if he can get his confidence and command back.

Meanwhile Jorge Lopez tends to be pretty good for 4 innings or so, with the exception of his last start, and then run into problems.

Why not give Scott 2-3 starts planning on 2 inning stints to try to get his mojo back and do it conjunction with Lopez's turn in the rotation?  He will be under less pressure and can afford a walk or two that might be more costly in a tie game with runners on base like most of his appearances. They did that with him in the minors. You get a lefty / righty combination which puts the other team in a bit of a lineup quandary and potentially depletes their bench if they substitute. You also have a chance to get into the 6th or 7th in a close game if Lopez hits his usual pattern. You would still potentially have Scott available for a short stint like his recent ones in between these starts if the right situation came up.

I don't think this is a long term solution - just a way to give Scott a chance to get his feet back under him in a different role and give Lopez a few more shots to see if he is a rotation piece, a multiple inning bullpen piece or a candidate for a DFA.

[waroriole]

I’d like to see them be creative with the pitching assignments. But I don’t know if Scott as an opener is the way to go. With his lack of control we could be out of the game in the first two innings. I’d rather he just get mop up duty until he finds his release point consistently. 
 

I do agree with Lopez being limited to 4-5 innings. Same with Kremer. They both tend to implode the third time through the order. However the beginning of the year is the time to test them and see if they improve. 

[HelenaEngineer]

19 minutes ago, waroriole said:

I’d like to see them be creative with the pitching assignments. But I don’t know if Scott as an opener is the way to go. With his lack of control we could be out of the game in the first two innings. I’d rather he just get mop up duty until he finds his release point consistently. 
 

I do agree with Lopez being limited to 4-5 innings. Same with Kremer. They both tend to implode the third time through the order. However the beginning of the year is the time to test them and see if they improve. 

I get that, but we already have Wells and Armstrong who really just need to be in mop up roles right now. Admittedly, the starting pitching has been bad enough lately that we could use a bunch of mop up relievers, but I think Scott could benefit from pitching when it matters but there is a little bit of wiggle room.

[Aristotelian]

I don't know, the last thing you want from your opener is him walking the leadoff guy and getting blown up. First couple innings are actually medium high leverage. 

[Frobby]

It’s worth remembering that Scott was used as a 3-inning opener for all of the 2017 minor league season, throwing to a 2.22 ERA in that role.    https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=scott-000tan&type=pgl&year=2017

[waroriole]

56 minutes ago, HelenaEngineer said:

I get that, but we already have Wells and Armstrong who really just need to be in mop up roles right now. Admittedly, the starting pitching has been bad enough lately that we could use a bunch of mop up relievers, but I think Scott could benefit from pitching when it matters but there is a little bit of wiggle room.

I’d like to see Armstrong DFAd and put Kremer or Lopez in the pen. Let Akin start and bring up Baumann to start later in the year. 

[spiritof66]

1 hour ago, Aristotelian said:

I don't know, the last thing you want from your opener is him walking the leadoff guy and getting blown up. First couple innings are actually medium high leverage. 

And who are some of the Oriole pitchers (other than Means) who are pretty good bets to open the game without getting the team behind on walks or hits or both in a couple of innings?

[HowAboutThat]

Lopez as an opener is a splendid idea: I’ve often pointed out Hyde leaves him in too long. But Scott as anything meaningful is dangerous. He’s just too wild to be relied on as anything as “up 10 or down 10” and Hyde seems to have realized it. So replace Lopez with a contrasting pitcher, but I don’t think we have a good match here. Wells maybe? Sceroler when he returns?

[HelenaEngineer]

9 minutes ago, spiritof66 said:

And who are some of the Oriole pitchers (other than Means) who are pretty good bets to open the game without getting the team behind on walks or hits or both in a couple of innings?

Exactly. I still think the bigger goal is to do something different with Scott to try and get him back on track. A 1/3 inning outing every few days or rotating mop-up duty with Wells, Armstrong, Lakins or whoever is probably not going to do it. You also need to do something a bit different with Lopez, so why not give it a shot. I am talking about a short term intervention with the goal of getting Scott back into a late inning, high leverage role, not a long term solution.