Tepesch Scratched for Friday Start

We discussed the silliness of pitching Nick Tepesch in the 14th inning of a tied game against the New York Yankees when you're 20 games below .500 at the end of July.

But that's exactly what Texas Rangers manager Ron Washington did on Tuesday night in an effort to give his team the best chance to win a game after he'd already burned through his entire bullpen. So yeah, we get the idea of wanting to win, but at this point, what does that matter?

What matters more is protecting your young pitchers such as Tepesch. And yes, he threw just 12 pitches before taking the loss, and after the game said he'd be fine to make his next scheduled start when the Rangers return home on Friday against Oakland with his manager in full agreement.

Now, not so much.

The Rangers announced Wednesday that Tepesch will miss that Friday start, and it's probably the right move, but it didn't need to happen in the first place had Washington just pitched a positional player and booted the game.

"I guess err on the side of caution would be the way to go," pitching coach Mike Maddux told ESPN Dallas. "We feel Nick would be available to pitch and he would be the first to tell you he could, yeah. But take a young kid and we asked him to do something outside of his box the other night, a team need. To his credit, we really appreciate him taking the ball. I know it was brief and not what he wanted or what anybody wanted. It's a testament to his character and his team-first attitude."

Whatever, Mike. Still a bad move.

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