Dissecting Martinez's opening day bullpen decisions

The nature of the baseball schedule, especially in northern cities that require a day off following the season opener to account for weather postponements, lends itself to gross overanalyzing of Game 1 of 162.

No other game all season, aside from perhaps postseason contests, gets dissected like this. But with nothing else to write or talk about for 48 hours until they take the field again, we really have no choice but to make a big deal out of every little thing that happens on opening day.

So let's dissect one of the significant aspects of the Nationals' 2-0 loss to the Mets on Thursday: Davey Martinez's bullpen usage.

Nothing any manager does draws as much attention as his bullpen decisions, so Martinez isn't alone in this regard. But in the first game of his second season as a big league skipper, he did open himself up to some scrutiny over the final three innings of this loss.

We'll start with the starter. Max Scherzer was brilliant as ever in his season debut, striking out 12 and allowing only two hits in 7 2/3 innings. It's that inning total that stands out most of all, though, because it's not common in today's sport for a starter to go that deep on opening day.

When Scherzer walked off the mound after finishing the top of the seventh, his pitch count stood at 93. He felt like he had more in the tank, especially after totaling 97 pitches in his final start of the spring last week.

"That's the importance of the previous start, of trying to get my pinch count as high as you can," the three-time Cy Young Award winner said. "I still felt like I had some pitches left in me."

In letting Scherzer take the mound for the top of the eighth, Martinez also let his pitcher bat for himself with two outs and nobody on in the bottom of the seventh, with the Nationals trailing 1-0 at the time.

Why not send up Matt Adams, the top left-handed bat on the bench, to face Mets right-hander Seth Lugo with a chance to tie the game on one swing?

"We had six outs to get a run," Martinez explained. "I knew (the pitcher's spot in the lineup) would come up again. I was trying to save Matty to face either (closer Edwin) Díaz or (setup man Jeurys) Familia if we get to that spot.

"I communicate with Max, day-in and day-out, during games, and he looked good. I was trying to give him a chance to stay in the game, win the game. And I knew we had six outs with our top guys coming up to hit."

It should be noted that Trevor Rosenthal began warming up during the bottom of the seventh, ready to come in and pitch the eighth if the Nats tied the game or took the lead. But the right-hander, making his return 1 1/2 years removed from Tommy John surgery, never got a chance to enter the game, because Scherzer struck out to end the seventh and then re-took the mound for the eighth.

Scherzer wound up facing three more batters. He struck out two of them (Juan Lagares and Brandon Nimmo) to bring his afternoon total up to 12. But in between those whiffs was a walk of pinch-hitter Dominic Smith. And that proved important.

"I did (get) fatigued kind of there in the eighth," the Nationals ace said. "I could feel I was really hitting a wall at the end and was able to just execute some changeups late there in the eighth to get some strikeouts. That was the end of my line right there."

With his starter's pitch count now at 109, Martinez made the move. Scherzer received a standing ovation as he departed, and Justin Miller (not Rosenthal, who had cooled down after warming up) entered from the bullpen to face Pete Alonso. Alonso promptly looped a single into shallow center field, leaving two on with two out and the left-handed Robinson Canó now stepping to the plate.

Again Martinez emerged from the dugout to make a pitching change, this time summoning Matt Grace. Why not Tony Sipp, the 35-year-old veteran signed earlier this month specifically to face the division's toughest left-handed batters like Canó?

"I like Grace's two-seamer against Canó," Martinez said. "And he made a great pitch. Canó just got jammed and blooped one into left field."

Grace did get burned on a good pitch, but Canó did what he had to do and looped his own single into shallow left field, this one bringing Smith home with a key insurance run.

Sipp, for what it's worth, had a bad track record against Canó from their days together in the American League West. Canó is 7-for-21 with three homers in his career against the lefty specialist. And for what it's worth on top of all that, Sipp did eventually warm up in the bullpen during the top of the ninth but never entered the game.

Neither did Sean Doolittle, who also warmed up without entering the game, just in case the Nationals tied things up in the bottom of the eighth. In the end, it was Kyle Barraclough who pitched the top of the ninth with his team down 2-0.

All of Martinez's moves were made with thought in mind. He had a reason for everything he did in those final innings.

But this point also is true: The Nationals, who had everybody available for opening day and who don't play again til Saturday, were engaged in a tight ballgame and never used either of their top two relievers (Doolittle and Rosenthal) or the veteran lefty they just signed to record big outs late in games.

And because there's nothing else to talk about until the series resumes Saturday, this is all worthy of a full-scale dissection today.