Carpenter- a reliever????

It's being reported by many that Carpenter will return as a reliever when he comes off the DL. Is this the right thing to do with a pitcher who is coming back from injury? While plenty of injured pitchers have come back in a changed role, most of those happen over an off-season.

Carpenter went on the DL with a posterior shoulder strain around the second week of August. Since then, he's had trouble building up his arm strength and conceded on August 27th that he has residual weakness in his shoulder. He recently threw a 60 pitch bullpen session and reported no problems but converting him to a reliever may not be the best thing.

If he is used as a normal reliever, he is going to be up and down, used probably two to 3 times a week. This is quite a difference from normal starting fatigue pattern potentially. Normally the pitcher will get several days off (with a throw day) in between starts. Relieving does not allow that most of the time. So while the first several appearances may not show any effect, the more he throws in this pattern, the more likely he is to suffer from fatigue.

Fatigue is a real problem when he is already experiencing residual weakness. Fatigue will likely set in earlier and as a consequence, could increase the chances of injury as well.

I think what the Cardinals should do is "piggy-back" him with someone else. Have Carpenter start with a goal of 4-5 innings and then have a long reliever/6th starter type to come in for another 3-4 innings before turning it over to a normal bullpen. Could the Cardinals eventually do this? Of course they could. Right now though they are planning on him going into the bullpen so I will be interested to see how this plays out.