Bullpen Report: August 25, 2016

The Arizona Diamondbacks plan to give both Daniel Hudson and Randall Delgado a chance in late-inning/closing situations. Neither have been great to date — they share an identical 4.20 FIP and just about the same K-BB% (10.7% K-BB% for Hudson, 10% for Delgado) — but Hudson owns the superior ground ball rate at 42.3% and induces more soft contact (23.6% Soft%) than Delgado (17.6% Soft%). And while both of the aforementioned right-handers post better numbers against opposing right-handed hitters, Delgado has been slightly better in terms of FIP (3.10 to Hudson’s 3.79) while Hudson has been better against left-handed hitters (4.70 FIP to Delgado’s 6.03). Situation in Arizona is still red, but if I had to grab one of the duo it would be Hudson. Late note: Arizona has Jake Barrett on the hill in the top of the eighth, down a pair of runs to Atlanta.

Kelvin Herrera induced a pop out to Martin Prado and a pair of strikeouts to Marcell Ozuna and Christian Yelich to earn his ninth save of the season in 11 opportunities. Herrera needed 19 pitches (12 strikes, six called and one swinging) to finish off the Marlins and lower his ERA to 1.87 (2.09 FIP) in 57.2 innings on the bump in ‘16. Despite the fine season the right-hander is having, Royals’ closer Wade Davis made the first of a few likely rehab appearances yesterday for the Royals of the Arizona Rookie League. He surrendered a hit and struck out one in an inning of work. He’ll likely jump back into ninth-inning duties when deemed ready to return to the first division, which could be as soon as early September.

Francisco Rodriguez converted his 35th save of the year today in 38 chances. KRod induced a worm burner and fanned a pair to finish off the Twinkies, 8-5. Rodriguez, now the owner of 421 career saves, sits just one behind Billy Wagner (422) and three behind John Franco (424) on the all-time career saves list.

Quick Hits: Tony Watson notched his eighth save on 13 pitches (10 strikes, two called and two swinging) in a 3-2 victory over the Brewers in 10 innings. The Pirates’ southpaw is now 8-of-11 in save situations with a 2.67 ERA (3.91 FIP) in 54 innings of work. Enny Romero picked up his first career save for the Rays tonight in a 2-1 win over the Red Sox. With David Ortiz at the dish, Tampa removed right-hander Tyler Sturdevent in favor of left-hander Enny Romero to eliminate Big Papi’s platoon advantage. Six pitches later, Ortiz struck out to end the game. For two-thirds of an innings, Sturdevent was rewarded with a hold. Also with holds this evening at the time of this writing: Chris Young (1), Joakim Soria (17), Arquimedes Caminero (8), Tom Wilhelmsen (11), Erasmo Ramirez (12), Matt Strahm (4) and Jose Valdez (3). You can view the entire list of today’s holds here for some left coast games that haven’t concluded just yet.

Closer Grid:

	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
Arizona	Daniel Hudson	Randall Delgado	Jake Barrett
Atlanta	Jim Johnson	Mauricio Cabrera	Arodys Vizcaino
Baltimore	Zach Britton	Brad Brach	Mychal Givens	Darren O’Day
Boston	Craig Kimbrel	Brad Ziegler	Matt Barnes	Koji Uehara
CHI (NL)	Aroldis Chapman	Carl Edwards Jr.	Travis Wood	Hector Rondon
CHI (AL)	David Robertson	Nate Jones	Matt Albers
Cincy	Tony Cingrani	Raisel Iglesiasi	Michael Lorenzen
Cleveland	Cody Allen	Andrew Miller	Bryan Shaw
Colorado	Adam Ottavino	Jake McGee	Boone Logan	Scott Oberg
Detroit	Francisco Rodriguez	Justin Wilson	Shane Greene
Houston	Ken Giles	Luke Gregerson	Will Harris
KC	Kelvin Herrera	Joakim Soria	Matt Strahm	Wade Davis
LAA	Fernando Salas	Deolis Guerra	J.C. Ramirez	Cam Bedrosian
LAD	Kenley Jansen	Joe Blanton	Adam Liberatore
Miami	Fernando Rodney	A.J. Ramos	Kyle Barraclough
Milwaukee	Tyler Thornburg	Corey Knebel	Carlos Torres
Minnesota	Brandon Kintzler	Ryan Pressly	Taylor Rogers	Glen Perkins
NY (NL)	Jeurys Familia	Addison Reed	Hansel Robles
NY (AL)	Dellin Betances	Tyler Clippard	Adam Warren
Oakland	Ryan Madson	John Axford	Ryan Dull	Sean Doolittle
Philly	Jeanmar Gomez	Hector Neris	Edubray Ramos
Pittsburgh	Tony Watson	Neftali Feliz	Felipe Rivero
St. Louis	Seung Hwan Oh	Kevin Siegrist	Jonathan Broxton
SD	Brandon Maurer	Kevin Quackenbush	Brad Hand	Ryan Buchter
SF	Santiago Casilla	Sergio Romo	Derek Law
Seattle	Edwin Diaz	Steve Cishek	Tom Wilhelmsen
TB	Alex Colome	Brad Boxberger	Xavier Cedeno
Texas	Sam Dyson	Jeremy Jeffress	Matt Bush
Toronto	Roberto Osuna	Jason Grilli	Joaquin Benoit
Wash.	Mark Melancon	Shawn Kelley	Blake Treinen

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