Early in the season we complained that a lack of off days and several short outings by Brewer starting pitchers were leading to the bullpen getting overused. It was true then, but it's even more true now. Yesterday Jordan Schelling noted that Brewer relievers had pitched 28.1 of the 61 innings (better than ten per game, by the way) the team had played over the previous six days.
It's possible no one has taken on the brunt of that workload quite like Kameron Loe. After he pitched the fourth and fifth innings yesterday, Trenni Kusnierek posted this note about him:
Kameron Loe has now pitched in 4 of the last 5 games & has thrown 110 total pitches allowing just 3 earned runs.
— Trenni Kusnierek (@trenni) May 23, 2012
Among all Brewer pitchers, only Zack Greinke (111) and Randy Wolf (113) have thrown more pitches than Kameron Loe over the last five days. But Loe's not the only one who's worked a lot lately. Here's a look at Brewer bullpen usage over the last seven days:
| Pitcher | 5/17 IP | PC | 5/18 IP | PC | 5/19 IP | PC | 5/20 IP | PC | 5/21 IP | PC | 5/22 IP | PC | 5/23 IP | PC | Total IP | PC |
| Kameron Loe | 1 | 17 | .1 | 9 | 1 | 37 | 2 | 25 | 2 | 41 | 6.1 | 129 | ||||
| Vinnie Chulk* | 1 | 19 | 1 | 26 | 2 | 47 | ||||||||||
| Jose Veras | 1 | 15 | 1 | 18 | .2 | 14 | 1 | 28 | 2 | 22 | 5.2 | 97 | ||||
| Manny Parra | .2 | 29 | 2 | 23 | 2 | 33 | 2 | 44 | 6.2 | 129 | ||||||
| Tim Dillard | .1 | 6 | .2 | 6 | 1 | 12 | ||||||||||
| John Axford | 1 | 15 | 1 | 12 | 1 | 24 | 1 | 11 | 4 | 62 | ||||||
| Juan Perez** | 0 | 9 | .2 | 22 | 1 | 26 | 1 | 22 | 2.2 | 79 | ||||||
| Francisco Rodriguez | 1 | 19 | 1 | 25 | 1 | 29 | 3 | 73 |
* - Chulk was designated for assignment following the May 18 game.
** - Perez did not join the team until May 19.
Once I get past the huge numbers for Loe and Parra my burning question becomes this: Is something wrong with Tim Dillard?