Bullpen Report: Friday May 22, 2015

Drew Storen is having a tremendous year closing games for the Nationals. He recorded his thirteenth save of the year, and lowered his ERA to 1.04 on Friday night. His FIP is 1.39 so he’s not fluking his way into anything. His K%-BB% is sitting at 28.1%, well above his career mark of 15.9%. His pitch mix and velocity haven’t changed much, but he’s getting more takes on pitches in the zone, with a Z-swing% of 56.1% which is well below the league average of 66.6% for relievers, and is down from the 61.5% mark he’s compiled over his career. And it’s not as if Wilson Ramos is stealing a pile of extra strikes for him, as he’s sitting 20th amongst catchers in extra strikes. His Z-contact% is way down too, so guys are missing the pitches that they do swing at in the zone. It’s sitting at 73.4%, way down from his career mark of 86.6% and the league average of 85.0%. Storen is having a heck of a year so far. In other Nationals news, Casey Janssen has been reinstated and he’s replacing Tanner Roark on the grid, as Roark is being tabbed to potentially start next week.

Fernando Rodney has a 6.61 ERA this year for the Mariners. That’s a very high number for a closer to have. He gave up two earned runs in his inning of work against Toronto on Friday night. That works out to an ERA of 18.00. That isn’t good at all. He got a save for his work. His pitch mix and velocity are about identical to 2014, but the results just aren’t there. An unfortunate .364 BABIP has contributed to a 70.3% LOB rate. Amongst relievers with at least ten IP, he has surrendered the ninth lowest hard contact rate, at 15.2%, but 14.3% of his fly balls have cleared the fence. That’s way above the league average of 9.8%. The Mariners are sticking with him, and you should too.

If you come in to the eighth inning of a tie game and retire the first hitter you face, you’re doing very well. If you then walk Gordon Beckham on four pitches, it doesn’t matter what happens next, you’ve lost. Paul Molitor knew this and immediately yanked Aaron Thompson from the game. Unfortunately, the stink enveloping the mound attached itself to poor Michael Tonkin, as he yielded a single to Alexei Ramirez and a sacrifice fly to J.B. Shuck(yes, it was a can of corn), and the Twins were behind. One place you don’t want to trail is in the ninth inning of a baseball game where the other team has David Robertson in their employ. Seven of his nine pitches were strikes, six of them were swung at, and three of them were missed. He struck out Torii Hunter, convinced Joe Mauer to ground out to first on one pitch, and then decided to sit down Trevor Plouffe on strikes to end the game. He’s disgustingly good at his job.

The Giants led the Rockies by three after eight innings in Denver, so Santiago Casilla figured he’d be getting the tap in the ninth to nail it down. Then the Giants scored four runs in the top of the ninth, so he could safely rest. Jeremy Affeldt has got this. After a rain delay that included the Friday night fireworks at Coors Field, Affeldt became your grandma at the family reunion, giving out singles to everyone. Five in a row and Casilla had to come in to close it out. He got the first two batters he faced, and then remembered he was upset at having to come in to a game when they had a seven-run lead in the ninth and promptly surrendered a double to allow another run to score, a run that was charged to Affeldt. He has eleven saves and probably isn’t really mad at Affeldt.

Joaquin Benoit was charged with the same task as Aaron Thompson in Minnesota, and he suffered a similar fate. Well, he gave up a home run to Joc Pederson, but the bottom line is that he gave up a run and put his team behind against an elite closer. I promise you, having foot surgery isn’t that awesome, but Jansen has struck out seven batters over three innings of work and his velocity has touched 95 mph. He is just fine and the Dodger bullpen is that much scarier now. Chris Hatcher earned his first win of the year for getting Justin Upton to line out to Andre Ethier on one pitch shortly before Pederson did his damage.

Of Note: Mark Melancon needed to throw only three pitches to record two outs and earn his tenth save of the season. You could have spent the month of March predicting 1,000 things a day that could possibly happen during the 2015 season. Ross Ohlendorf saving a game in Yankee Stadium would likely be nowhere amongst those 31,000 predictions. Well, it happened Friday night. If you haven’t watched Ohlendorf pitch for the Rangers this year, please do. Just another reminder why baseball is so much fun. Zach Britton notched his tenth save after Brad Brach gave up a home run and a single, bringing the tying run to the on deck circle with two out in the ninth. So your closer has to come in there, I guess. It took him three pitches to retire Adeiny Hechavarria, or as Siri calls him, a dainty hatch of Arabia. Brad Boxberger tied a record held by many, when he struck out the only hitter he faced on three pitches to earn the save. It was his thirteenth. Hector Rondon came on with a two-run lead in the tenth, retired the first two batters he encountered, and then gave up a double to bring up the tying run in the person of Paul Goldschmidt. Two-run homer later, and they are still playing. Addison Reed was charged with the two Cub runs in the top of the tenth.

Closer Grid:

	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
Arizona	Brad Ziegler	Enrique Burgos	Addison Reed	Evan Marshall
Atlanta	Jason Grilli	Jim Johnson	Luis Avilan
Baltimore	Zach Britton	Darren O’Day	Tommy Hunter
Boston	Koji Uehara	Alexi Ogando	Junichi Tazawa
CHI (NL)	Hector Rondon	Pedro Strop	Jason Motte
CHI (AL)	David Robertson	Jacob Petricka	Zach Duke
Cincy	Aroldis Chapman	Jumbo Diaz	Tony Cingrani	Sean Marshall
Cleveland	Cody Allen	Bryan Shaw	Scott Atchison
Colorado	John Axford	Rafael Betancourt	Boone Logan	Adam Ottavino
Detroit	Joakim Soria	Joba Chamberlain	Angel Nesbitt	Joe Nathan
Houston	Luke Gregerson	Chad Qualls	Pat Neshek
KC	Greg Holland	Wade Davis	Kelvin Herrera
LAA	Huston Street	Joe Smith	Vinnie Pestano
LAD	Kenley Jansen	Yimi Garcia	Chris Hatcher	Pedro Baez
Miami	A.J. Ramos	Bryan Morris	Mike Dunn	Steve Cishek
Milwaukee	Francisco Rodriguez	Jonathan Broxton	Will Smith
Minnesota	Glen Perkins	Brian Duensing	Blaine Boyer	Casey Fien
NY (NL)	Jeurys Familia	Carlos Torres	Sean Gilmartin	Jenrry Mejia
NY (AL)	Andrew Miller	Dellin Betances	Justin Wilson	Chris Martin
Oakland	Tyler Clippard	Evan Scribner	Dan Otero	Sean Doolittle
Philly	Jonathan Papelbon	Ken Giles	Luis Garcia
Pittsburgh	Mark Melancon	Tony Watson	Arquimedes Caminero
St. Louis	Trevor Rosenthal	Seth Maness	Matt Belisle	Jordan Walden
SD	Craig Kimbrel	Joaquin Benoit	Dale Thayer
SF	Santiago Casilla	Sergio Romo	Jeremy Affeldt
Seattle	Fernando Rodney	Danny Farquhar	Carson Smith
TB	Brad Boxberger	Jake McGee	Kevin Jepsen
Texas	Shawn Tolleson	Keone Kela	Neftali Feliz	Tanner Scheppers
Toronto	Brett Cecil	Roberto Osuna	Steve Delabar	Miguel Castro
Wash.	Drew Storen	Aaron Barrett	Casey Janssen	Casey Janssen

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