Bullpen Report: April 19, 2015

After watching Sugar Ray Marimon give up a game-winning home run to Josh Donaldson Saturday, Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez hinted that he’d lean towards using Jason Grilli in tie games on the road, instead of waiting to protect a lead that may never materialize. We didn’t get a chance to see that in action today, but Grilli did notch his sixth save. Cody Martin got the nod over a suddenly struggling Jim Johnson to set up Grilli. It would have been Johnson’s third appearance in three days, so maybe there’s nothing to read into here, but giving up two earned on both Friday and Saturday doesn’t garner much confidence. Interestingly, he had identical lines both nights, Friday he earned a hold, Saturday a blown save. Maybe monitor this early in the week, and see what Gonzalez does with his pen if you’re holding Johnson.

Dellin Betances threw 23 pitches to get his five outs. Something about a dominant reliever getting more than three outs just makes my heart sing. Andrew Miller struck out the side to get the save as the Yankees swept the Rays. I think we’re about at the point where all of us DellinCorp owners can just stop wishing for some saves from him and start looking elsewhere for them. Keep him of course, but it’s becoming apparent that he’s just not going to be providing many saves this year.

Greg Holland will be on the shelf for a couple of weeks with a strain of his right pectoral muscle. Wade Davis and Kelvin Herrera will just move up to pitch the ninth and eighth respectively. Based on today’s usage against Oakland, Ryan Madson will slot into the seventh inning role until Holland returns. Nice little bonus for all of the Wade Davis owners out there.

After pitching both Friday and Saturday, getting touched up for the loss yesterday, Craig Kimbrel was unavailable today, allowing Joaquin Benoit to collect his first save. Along with his three wins, 1.13 ERA and 1.00 WHIP, you haven’t been hurting if you kept him after the Kimbrel acquisition.

Neftali Feliz was called into the game in Seattle in the eighth inning with the bases loaded after Tanner Scheppers and Keone Kela walked four Mariners, bringing up the tying run in the person of Nelson Cruz, who had homered twice already. After he had faced the rest of the Mariners, Feliz faced Cruz again and delivered a walk-off single on the last of the 47 pitches that he threw.

Of Note: Jeurys Familia got his sixth save of the season as the Mets beat the Marlins again. Jared Hughes earned his fifth hold of the season, striking out two in a perfect seventh. Tony Watson and Mark Melancon followed as usual to close it out. Drew Storen worked around two hits to escape with his fourth save. Chad Qualls got the day off, and Tony Sipp took his spot with Pat Neshek and Luke Gregerson to shut down the Angels to seal a 4-3 win. Qualls struck out three in his perfect inning on Saturday to bounce back from an ugly outing on Friday. Carlos Rodon has been called up by the White Sox and will be pitching out of the bullpen. Pick him up if you have the space, because he’s not going to be in the pen forever. Grant Balfour has been DFA’d by the Rays and has been replaced by Ernesto Frieri on the closer grid.

Closer Grid:

	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
Arizona	Addison Reed	Evan Marshall	Brad Ziegler
Atlanta	Jason Grilli	Jim Johnson	Luis Avilan
Baltimore	Zach Britton	Darren O’Day	Tommy Hunter
Boston	Koji Uehara	Junichi Tazawa	Edward Mujica
CHI (NL)	Hector Rondon	Pedro Strop	Jason Motte
CHI (AL)	David Robertson	Zach Putnam	Zach Duke	Jacob Petricka
Cincy	Aroldis Chapman	Jumbo Diaz	Tony Cingrani	Sean Marshall
Cleveland	Cody Allen	Bryan Shaw	Scott Atchison
Colorado	Adam Ottavino	Rafael Betancourt	LaTroy Hawkins	John Axford
Detroit	Joakim Soria	Al Alburquerque	Joba Chamberlain	Joe Nathan
Houston	Luke Gregerson	Chad Qualls	Pat Neshek
KC	Wade Davis	Kelvin Herrera	Ryan Madson	Greg Holland
LAA	Huston Street	Joe Smith	Vinnie Pestano
LAD	Joel Peralta	Chris Hatcher	Pedro Baez	Kenley Jansen
Miami	Steve Cishek	A.J. Ramos	Mike Dunn
Milwaukee	Francisco Rodriguez	Jonathan Broxton	Will Smith
Minnesota	Glen Perkins	Caleb Thielbar	Casey Fien
NY (NL)	Jeurys Familia	Carlos Torres	Jerry Blevins	Jenrry Mejia
NY (AL)	Andrew Miller	Dellin Betances	David Carpenter
Oakland	Tyler Clippard	Eric O’Flaherty	Dan Otero	Sean Doolittle
Philly	Jonathan Papelbon	Ken Giles	Jake Diekman
Pittsburgh	Mark Melancon	Tony Watson	Jared Hughes
St. Louis	Trevor Rosenthal	Jordan Walden	Seth Maness
SD	Craig Kimbrel	Joaquin Benoit	Dale Thayer	Kevin Quackenbush
SF	Santiago Casilla	Sergio Romo	Jeremy Affeldt
Seattle	Fernando Rodney	Danny Farquhar	Yoervis Medina
TB	Brad Boxberger	Kevin Jepsen	Ernesto Frieri	Jake McGee
Texas	Neftali Feliz	Shawn Tolleson	Keone Kela	Tanner Scheppers
Toronto	Miguel Castro	Brett Cecil	Roberto Osuna	Steve Delabar
Wash.	Drew Storen	Aaron Barrett	Blake Treinen	Casey Janssen

[Green light, yellow light, red light: the colors represent the volatility of the bullpen order.]