Pitching strategy in spotlight as SEC Tournament begins

In baseball, if the cliché “defense wins championships” is true, then a team’s pitching staff is the first line of that defense.

Sure, the fielding ability of a team is part of that defense, but it doesn’t matter how good the fielders are if the opposing team can’t hit the ball. In tournament baseball, that importance is amplified and how a team uses its pitchers (both starters and bullpen) can have a bigger impact than anything else.

That puts the eight SEC teams competing on the first day of the SEC Tournament in an interesting situation. Most of the teams deployed their “ace” pitcher five days ago and starting Tuesday would be a shorter-than-normal rest for those pitchers.

Should teams go ahead and put forth their best starting pitcher? Or follow their seasonal rotation and start someone else Tuesday?

Based on the starting pitchers announced for Mississippi State (34-20, 15-15 SEC) and Texas A&M (28-25, 11-19 SEC), it looks like they’ll be following the second of those options in some form.