Cardinals Should Take After Mariners with Starting Rotation Approach

The St. Louis Cardinals' starting pitching has done surprisingly well for the most part, save for Thursday night's blowup start from left-hander Matthew Liberatore. Starters such as Michael McGreevy, Andre Pallante and Dustin May have all performed well for St. Louis.

However, the Cardinals have one other option at Triple-A Memphis that could be of use. Right-hander Hunter Dobbins has made four appearances with the Cardinals this season, two of them as a starter.

As of now, Dobbins seems like a better option to run out every fifth day than Liberatore. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic took note of how the Seattle Mariners use a piggyback system for their six starters.

Perhaps this is something the Cardinals should try.

Cardinals Should Take After Mariners' Piggyback Approach

Trying this might be a good idea for St. Louis. Lately, Liberatore and Leahy have struggled to get deep in ballgames, though Leahy at least turned in a quality start on Wednesday against the San Diego Padres.

Perhaps, at least for Liberatore's starts, the Cardinals could have Dobbins ready and have him piggyback off of Liberatore. That way, the Cardinals can have six starters and make use of all of them by using this system.

Dobbins is also somebody they could have as a long relief option to save the bullpen in games that get away from them as Thursday night's game did. But the approach is working for the Mariners, so it might be wise for the Cardinals to give it a try.

This would prevent them from needing to go out and add a starter at the trade deadline and would also allow them to stay true to their rebuild. They could use more depth, but they could also find ways to make use of the depth they already have.

Starting pitching is an area they could look to improve, but they could improve it internally by adopting this approach. That would allow them to keep all of their starters fresh and make use of them in different ways.

At a certain point, they are going to have to do something about the short starts turned in by Leahy and Liberatore. But at least adding Dobbins to the mix could help prevent blowup outings and also allow them to have a viable option that can be counted on for length, either as a starter or a reliever.

It will be interesting to see what the Cardinals decide to do.

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