Wuertz was used alot the first two months of the season, especially in April. In May he pitched in less games, but was used in the same amount of innings. Still 27 IP the first two months of the season was only a half inning less then Howry, and two innings less then Wood. June is when Lou started to lose faith in Wuertz, because Wuertz was sucking. His era says 2.08 and looks pretty impressive, but Wuertz was very lucky. In 6 of 12 games he pitched in he allowed more hits or walks then outs he got. So he often let other pitchers base runners score, or was bailed out by other pitchers when he left runners on base. So maybe Lou did give up on him too soon, but lets not forget the same manager that let Wuertz pitch in 73 games a year ago. So maybe all the blame shouldn't go on Lou, and alot of it was due to Wuertz sucking. It didn't help that when he got sent to Triple A he pitched kinda subpar, and thats why it took him until September to come back. i was just talking about the IP argument. wuertz would have as much work as gregg if he was actually used and lou didn't hate him. And his era would have probably been much higher if Lou used him in more innings. . Why? His career ERA is 3.57 in 262.1 IP. I don't know why we're talking so much about ERA for relievers though. Right. As noted by CF26, his peripherals weren't very good either. I like Wuertz, but to argue his struggles last year were because he was underutilized (not accurate) or because Lou hates him (completely made up) is baseless. IMO, stick to the facts. Where did I ever say anything about his struggles being due to being underused last season? I'm not arguing any of that. I just didn't understand why he was talking about IP totals when they have nothing to do with anything really. I don't know what he was trying to say by that. Oh, and it's obvious Lou wasn't a fan, but Lou is not a fan of any reliever who comes in and walks guys