masn-baseballs-orioles.jpgIt was the eighth inning last night and Brad Bergesen came running in from center field to pitch. He was going to make his first-ever Major League relief appearance.

It just didn’t look right, seeing Bergy as a reliever.

I am not sure if that’s the right role for him.

He’s become somewhat of the odd man out right now. He’s in the pen for a couple of reasons. One, he wasn’t pitching consistently well as a starter (16 ER over his last 14 1/3) and two, right now the other five starters…It was the eighth inning last night and Brad Bergesen came running in from center field to pitch. He was going to make his first-ever Major League relief appearance.

It just didn’t look right, seeing Bergy as a reliever.

I am not sure if that’s the right role for him.

He’s become somewhat of the odd man out right now. He’s in the pen for a couple of reasons. One, he wasn’t pitching consistently well as a starter (16 ER over his last 14 1/3) and two, right now the other five starters are just ahead of him in the pecking order.

I sure thought Brad Bergesen was going to have a better year than this. It started with the injury that happened while shooting a TV spot. His start to spring was delayed. He was sent back to the minors. He has never been able to produce the consistent mechanics and delivery that looked automatic last season.

At the end of last year, when Bergesen was 7-5, 3.43, you could not imagine this happening. Some said his “stuff” wasn’t good enough, but until Billy Butler hit that ball off his leg, he kept pounding that sinker in the zone and hitters kept beating it into the ground.

This season, Bergesen has allowed 5 ER or more in seven of ten starts. Last year he did that in just five of 19 starts.

I wonder if, moving forward, it would not be better for him to go back to the minors to pitch as a starter every fifth day to get that sinker back to its 2009 form.

Can he do that pitching in relief, where he might sit for five, six, seven days in a row?