Dodgers News: Don Mattingly Explains Pulling Brian Wilson Against A’s

In the Los Angeles Dodgers fifth Spring Training tie today against the Oakland Athletics, setup man Brian Wilson was pulled after facing just three hitters.

Manager Don Mattingly and assistant trainer Greg Harrel went to the mound in the middle of his first at-bat against A’s shortstop Addison Russel and after allowing two hits, a run and recording just one out, he was pulled. After the game, Mattingly was asked about the decision to pull Wilson and said nothing was physically wrong:

Reason we ended up going out there is reason Rick (Honeycutt) sees something early. I go out and talked to him. He says he isn’t hurting anywhere. He did say he warmed up a lot in that inning and all day long we’ve been limiting pitches for everyone today for quick turnarounds. Sounds fine.

Mattingly said Wilson was capped around 15 pitches in hopes of getting him and all relievers acclimated with pitching in games on consecutive days. Relievers Brandon League, Chris Perez and J.P. Howell all didn’t pitch a full inning, but League might’ve been pulled more for his poor performance.

Signed back to a one-year, $10 million deal, Wilson hadn’t allowed a run in his previous two appearances. Mattingly also said this isn’t the first time Wilson looked bad after warming up for a long time:

The only time we’ve seen him get hit when he warmed up a long time. There’s one appearance in Cincinnati last season where he was up and down and had to wait.

The Dodgers scored four runs in the bottom of the seventh, which caused Wilson to start and stop throwing in the bullpen. Mattingly also reiterated that he spoke to head trainer Stan Conte after the game and said the 31-year-old reliever didn’t receive any treatment after the game.

With less than a week remaining until the trip to Australia, it’ll be interesting to see how Wilson bounces back after his poor showing today.

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