Good morning, Chicago.

Craig Counsell and Will Venable trusted their bullpens on Saturday with similar results.

Counsell watched his Cubs bullpen blow a late 5-0 lead in an 8-6 loss, while Venable watched the White Sox ’pen lose 4-1 on a bullpen day scripted because of the lack of a fifth starter.

The Sox bullpen didn't perform any better on Sunday, blowing leads in the ninth and 10th innings of a 5-4 loss to get swept in Detroit and finish 1-5 on the road trip.

Venable and Counsell are no different from every other manager in baseball who is heavily reliant on multiple relievers to do the job on any given day. The average number of pitchers a team uses per game is 4.23, and has been above 4.11 since 2015.

It’s not going backward any time soon, as starters’ pitch counts decrease and the average velocity of relievers increases.

Fair or not, a manager typically gets criticized for his bullpen moves when things go wrong and seldom gets credit when everything goes right, writes Paul Sullivan.

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