Bullpen Report: June 1, 2018
The Pirates may have been insisting that Felipe Vazquez is healthy, but something appears to be wrong. After rebounding from a string of subpar performances with solid outings on Tuesday and Wednesday, Vazquez blew his fourth save in 12 days on Thursday night against the Cardinals. He was entrusted with an 8-5 lead in the bottom of the ninth inning, but before he could get an out, he loaded the bases and then gave up a two-RBI single to Luke Voit. (In fairness to Vazquez, Tommy Pham reached base by way of a Sean Rodriguez fielding error.) On Vazquez’s very next pitch, Yairo Munoz homered on a 96 mph fastball in the middle of the plate for a walk-off victory.
Clint Hurdle summed up his closer’s performance when he said Vazquez “couldn’t get any swings outside the zone and they barreled up everything in the zone.” That has not only been the case for Thursday’s performance. Over his last six appearances, Vazquez has induced chases on only 26.0 percent of his pitches that have missed the strike zone. He has allowed 23 hit balls over this stretch, and nine of them have been line drives. These trends have contributed to Vazquez allowing nine runs (seven earned) on 12 hits and three walks over just 3.2 innings.
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