Bullpen Report: August 25, 2014

• Unfortunately for Sean Doolittle owners, he was recently placed on the DL with an “intercostal strain.” Dan Otero, who had recently been demoted to AAA, has been recalled to Oakland to replace Doolittle. According to Susan Slusser, Eric O’Flaherty is likely to fill in as closer (at first), becoming a must own in all fantasy leagues. As of this writing, O’Flaherty was warming up to pitch in the ninth inning with a save situation, a promising sign for teams looking for saves.  We’ll update the grid as we get more information but for now it seems like O’Flaherty in the lead with Luke Gregerson and Otero setting up. Ryan Cook is also worth a look as he could get some saves as well, but it seems like Melvin wants to keep Gregerson and Otero in their familiar setup roles. It’s worth noting that O’Flaherty is a lefty but that didn’t seem to affect Melvin’s decision to use Doolittle as closer and in 189.2 career innings against righties O’Flaherty has a .306 wOBA against, so it’s not as if opposite handed hitters feast off of him.

• Koji Uehara’s struggles continued after he allowed runs in a fourth consecutive appearance tonight for his fourth blown save of the season. Up 3-0 in the ninth inning, with one out and the bases loaded, Uehara relieved Clay Buchholz and proceeded to give up a fielders choice and a two-run double by Edwin Encarnacion, letting all of his inherited runners score. Luckily for Uehara owners however, he was able to “earn” the win after the Sox scored in the 10th. Craig Breslow  recorded the save for Uhera, but Edward Mujica or Junichi Tazawa are next in line after Uehara in the pecking order for saves. Uehara isn’t known for being an Iron Horse and his velocity this season is down slightly from last year, but it’s also been fairly consistent throughout his excellent 2014 season. Injury or just a few bad bounces in a row, with the Red Sox not contending and Uehara being a Free Agent next season, the Sox could look to give someone else a shot at closing saves as we enter September.

• Trevor Rosenthal recorded his 39th save of the year but allowed an Andrew McCutchen solo shot in the process. Rosenthal has been shakier than fantasy owners expected this season (duh) but he’s still the closer on a competitive team with a K% at almost 30%. Pat Neshek is rosterable in a lot of leagues regardless if Rosie stays closer all season long so with trade deadlines likely passed in most leagues, teams in needs of saves (especially in NL-Only leagues) have to speculate somewhere, and this situation is certainly worth a look.

• Quick Hits: Just like Rosenthal, Jonathan Papelbon allowed a solo shot en route to a save, the 32nd of his season. Zach Britton threw a scoreless inning in a non save situation, lowering his ERA to 2.01.

Closer Grid:

	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
Arizona	Addison Reed	Brad Ziegler	Oliver Perez
Atlanta	Craig Kimbrel	Jordan Walden	David Carpenter	Shae Simmons
Baltimore	Zach Britton	Tommy Hunter	Andrew Miller
Boston	Koji Uehara	Edward Mujica	Junichi Tazawa
CHI (NL)	Hector Rondon	Neil Ramirez	Kyuji Fujikawa
CHI (AL)	Jacob Petricka	Zach Putnam	Matt Lindstom
Cincy	Aroldis Chapman	Jonathan Broxton	Sam LeCure	Sean Marshall
Cleveland	Cody Allen	Bryan Shaw	Scott Atchison
Colorado	LaTroy Hawkins	Adam Ottavino	Rex Brothers
Detroit	Joe Nathan	Joba Chamberlain	Al Alburquerque	Joakim Soria
Houston	Chad Qualls	Tony Sipp	Josh Fields
KC	Greg Holland	Wade Davis	Jason Frasor
LAA	Huston Street	Joe Smith	Jason Grilli
LAD	Kenley Jansen	Brian Wilson	Brandon League
Miami	Steve Cishek	Bryan Morris	A.J. Ramos
Milwaukee	Francisco Rodriguez	Will Smith	Brandon Kintzler	Jim Henderson
Minnesota	Glen Perkins	Jared Burton	Casey Fien
NY (NL)	Jenrry Mejia	Jeurys Familia	Vic Black	Bobby Parnell
NY (AL)	David Robertson	Dellin Betances	Adam Warren
Oakland	Eric O’Flaherty	Luke Gregerson	Dan Otero	Sean Doolittle
Philly	Jonathan Papelbon	Ken Giles	Jake Diekman	Mike Adams
Pittsburgh	Mark Melancon	Tony Watson	Jared Hughes
St. Louis	Trevor Rosenthal	Pat Neshek	Seth Maness	Jason Motte
SD	Joaquin Benoit	Kevin Quackenbush	Dale Thayer
SF	Santiago Casilla	Jeremy Affeldt	Sergio Romo
Seattle	Fernando Rodney	Danny Farquhar	Dominic Leone
TB	Jake McGee	Brad Boxberger	Grant Balfour
Texas	Neftali Feliz	Neal Cotts	Shawn Tolleson
Toronto	Casey Janssen	Aaron Loup	Brett Cecil
Wash.	Rafael Soriano	Tyler Clippard	Drew Storen

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