Michael Wacha's first outing in weeks was ill-timed.
Michael Wacha's first outing in weeks was ill-timed. (USATSI)

SAN FRANCISCO -- Cardinals starting pitcher Michael Wacha had battled injuries for the better part of the season. He hadn't thrown in game action since Sept. 26 and had only logged 16 2/3 innings of big-league action since June 17. Yes, June. That's not a typo.

And, yet, with the Cardinals facing a 3-1 deficit in the NLCS against the Giants with Game 5 tied heading to the bottom of the ninth inning, Cardinals manager Mike Matheny elected to go with Wacha instead of closer Trevor Rosenthal or left-handers Marco Gonzales and Randy Choate.

We'll get to the lefties in a second. First up, the "closer" nonsense.

As far as not using Rosenthal, Matheny insisted after the game that this is because it's a tie game on the road. In other words, he was saving his closer in hopes of getting him a save in extra innings. You know, managing for a stat when the team has its back against the wall. This regular-season mindset shouldn't even be the mindset in the regular season, but for the love of all that is holy, how is this the mindset in an elimination game? Planning for hopefully getting a save when it might never come -- and as it turns out, never did? That's just amazing. This isn't just Matheny. Almost everyone does it and it needs to stop.

Anyway, Wacha allowed a single to Pablo Sandoval before getting a Hunter Pence flyout.

And now, the next two batters were Brandon Belt and Travis Ishikawa. Both lefties. The Cardinals had two lefties in their bullpen.

And Matheny still stayed the course. Even after Wacha walked Belt, he still stuck with him.

Isihikawa then proceeded to end the series. Again, Wacha hadn't thrown a pitch in game action in weeks and he was left out to dry in the biggest inning of the Cardinals' season.

Matheny, to his personal credit, took the blame after the game.

"I put him in a tough place without getting much work lately," Matheny said. "That's on me."

I'm not going to argue.

If Wacha was healthy enough to be used in a big spot in Game 5, there were times in the first two series he should have been used. He wasn't, so there was no reason to throw him into the fire the way he was.

Regardless, the Cardinals now head home for the off-season, left to ponder what went wrong with Matheny's bullpen management in the series.