Bullpen Report: August 7, 2019

Tuesday night’s game in Cleveland was rained out, but the visiting Rangers generated one of the bigger stories regarding closers. Chris Woodward told Levi Weaver of The Athletic that José Leclerc would continue to be the team’s closer, even after Shawn Kelley’s (biceps) activation from the IL. Kelley was officially activated on Wednesday morning, and he will join the Rangers’ cadre of setup relievers, which also includes Jesse Chavez, Rafael Montero and the recently-promoted Emmanuel Clase.

Aside from a pair of subpar performances last week, Leclerc has been generally solid over the past month, as he did not allow a run in any of his 10 other appearances. In those outings, he struck out 10 batters over 8.2 innings with no walks and two hits allowed. However, Leclerc also compiled a 35.3 percent Zone% and a 29.3 percent O-Swing% over the entire one-month stretch, so walks could still be an issue going forward.

On Monday, the Cubs placed Craig Kimbrel on the 10-day IL with right knee inflammation, and then on Tuesday, they shelved one of the top candidates to replace him as the team’s interim closer. Brandon Kintzler went on the 10-day IL with a pectoral strain. The Cubs did activate Pedro Strop on Tuesday, but he will not be used for save situations. That would appear to put Steve Cishek in the best position to close, though it is conceivable that David Phelps, who recorded a save on Monday, and Kyle Ryan could be in the mix, too. Joe Maddon suggested that the move to put Kintzler on the IL was precautionary, so he may be in line for saves in due time, should Kimbrel be sidelined longer than expected.

I’m not quite ready to take the committee tag off the Diamondbacks’ row in the closer grid, but we got one more signal that Archie Bradley could be sliding into a full-time closer role. Bradley has the team’s last two saves, and on Tuesday night, he held the Phillies scoreless in the top of the ninth inning in the Diamondbacks’ 8-4 win. Arizona had a 7-4 advantage going into the bottom of the eighth, so if it were not for Alex Avila’s leadoff home run off Zach Eflin, Bradley could have had a save opportunity.

Could the Rays’ tumultuous bullpen be settling into a stable hierarchy? It’s too soon to say for sure, but three days after they finished off an 8-6 win against the Marlins using Nick Anderson in the eighth inning and Emilio Pagán in the ninth inning, Kevin Cash followed that pattern again against the Blue Jays. Anderson pitched a perfect top of the eighth in a 6-6 tie, and Pagán kept the game knotted with a scoreless top of the ninth.

The Rays prevailed in the bottom of the 10th when Kevin Kiermaier scored on a Buddy Boshers wild pitch. Ken Giles had warmed up, but he did not appear in the game. For now, the Blue Jays’ closer won’t be pitching in consecutive games as he works his way back from a bout of elbow inflammation. He last appeared on Sunday, which was his only appearance since July 27.

With Freddy Peralta and Jeremy Jeffress both struggling in their recent performances, a new setup crew may be emerging for the Brewers. They came out of the seventh-inning stretch with a 3-2 lead over the Pirates on Tuesday night, and Craig Counsell turned to ex-Ray Jake Faria to pitch both the bottom of the seventh and eighth innings. In his first appearance as a Brewer, Faria maintained the lead. Then in the ninth inning, with Josh Hader resting after having thrown 28 pitches on Monday night, he handed off to Matt Albers for the save.

Fortunately for Albers, the Brewers tacked on an insurance run in the top of the ninth. He began by allowing an Elias Díaz single and a Pablo Reyes RBI double, but then Albers settled down to record his second save of the season. The run he allowed was his first since July 14.

Quick hits: Kenley Jansen (26), Sean Doolittle (25) and Alex Colomé (22) were all in the saves column on Tuesday…Adam Ottavino held the Orioles scoreless in the eighth and ninth innings of the Yankees’ 9-4 win, allowing only a Stevie Wilkerson single. Ottavino, like Wilkerson, now has one save on the season…Shane Greene gave up a two-out home run to Eddie Rosario in an otherwise spotless ninth inning in the Braves’ 12-7 win over the Twins. While Greene has now allowed five runs in three innings as a Brave, the home run he allowed did not clear the outfield wall by much and had a 52 percent hit probability (per Baseball Savant), so it was not exactly a no-doubter. Of his 11 pitches, three were swinging strikes and four were called strikes…Pitching with a four-run deficit against the Royals, Darwinzon Hernandez struck out the side in a 1-2-3 ninth inning for the Red Sox. He now has 29 strikeouts in 14.1 innings…Ryan Pressly (knee) has a chance of getting activated and rejoining the Astros’ bullpen this Friday…The Cardinals called up 22-year-old relief prospect Junior Fernandez from Triple-A Memphis on Tuesday. The hard-throwing righty has pitched at three minor league levels this season, and at Memphis, he posted a 1.31 ERA with 23 strikeouts in 20.2 innings. He could be used in long relief…The Mariners activated Brandon Brennan from the 10-day IL on Tuesday, but he did not pitch in the team’s 9-4 loss to the Padres…Ryne Stanek was activated on Monday and made his Marlins debut on Tuesday night. He pitched a scoreless eighth inning in a 5-0 loss to the Mets.