Bullpen Report: July 27, 2018

Joakim Soria brought some stability to the White Sox’s closer situation over the last couple of months, but now he is leaving a gaping void in the bullpen, having been traded to the Brewers on Thursday. If we were to speculate on Soria’s replacement based on usage patterns, we would need to run out and pick up Jeanmar Gomez, who has received the bulk of the recent eighth-inning setup work, particularly against right-handed batters. However, Rick Renteria suggested he will go with a committee, though he did single out a reliever who could get a chance to win the job outright — and it wasn’t Gomez.

Curiously, it was Jace Fry, who has 10 holds but only one in the last month. It certainly feels better to take a gamble on Fry, who has a 20.6 percent K-BB%, than on Gomez, who has had a complicated relationship with closing and has made only five major league appearances this season. While Fry’s 3.77 ERA is off-putting, we should bear in mind that he has a 57.4 percent strand rate that is almost certain to improve.

As for Soria, his new manager, Craig Counsell, says he will be an “out-getter,” not specifying any particular role. Yet, if you are a Soria owner, you may want to let him occupy a roster spot just a little longer. Corey Knebel has had an up-and-down season, and right now, he is enduring one of his difficult stretches. While Knebel successfully converted his 13th save on Thursday against the Giants, it was the latest in a series of less-than-dominant performances.

Over the season as a whole, Knebel has been less effective at inducing whiffs, freezes and soft contact than he was a year ago, and he has been deficient in all three areas in his latest appearances. He has allowed at least one hit in eight straight outings, and over that eight-inning span, Knebel has a 7.4 percent swinging strike rate, a 15.4 percent called strike rate and a 14.3 percent soft contact rate. Those subpar indicators have contributed to him allowing six runs on 13 hits and four walks with only five strikeouts during this stretch.

Even if Counsell were to pull Knebel from the closer’s role at some point, he could just as easily go with Jeremy Jeffress, Josh Hader or even rookie Corbin Burnes, but Soria would seem like a prime candidate as well. Since taking over as the White Sox’s closer, he had allowed runs in only one of his 19 appearances, while striking out 25 batters in 18.1 innings.

Brad Boxberger’s affinity for allowing hard contact (44.8 percent rate) and walks (12.0 percent rate) looks like a dangerous combination, but entering Thursday’s game against the Cubs, he had been drama-free for just over a month. Over his previous 11 innings, Boxberger had allowed only seven baserunners, and the only run he allowed was a Starlin Castro home run on June 27.

Both wildness and hard contact ruined his Thursday performance against the Cubs. Boxberger was handed a two-run lead to start off the ninth inning, but he immediately put the tying run at the plate by walking Ben Zobrist. Two batters later, David Bote erased the lead with a 417-foot home run to center field (per Baseball Savant). Then Anthony Rizzo won the game with a solo shot on an 0-1 pitch.

While Thursday’s performance was disastrous, I am refraining from giving Boxberger the “Not Very Stable” tag in the grid just yet. His homer-proneness does make him someone who could escalate to that level (or worse yet, “Hot Seat”) very quickly.

Quick hits: Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports reports that the Rangers are “getting close to something” in terms of trading Keone Kela…In sealing a 4-3 win over the Orioles, Austin Pruitt became the fourth Rays reliever to notch multiple saves this season…The Rays dealt two members of their bullpen over the last 48 hours, trading Matt Andriese to the Diamondbacks and Jonny Venters to the Braves…Since blowing back-to-back saves just under a month ago, Fernando Rodney has converted five straight saves, but only one of them has involved a full clean inning. On Thursday night, Rodney issued a pair of two-out walks to load the bases, but after going to a 3-0 count on Jackie Bradley Jr., he got a strikeout to preserve the Twins’ 2-1 win over the Red Sox…Matt Barnes was charged with the loss to the Twins, as he gave up Mitch Garver’s go-ahead eighth-inning double. It was the first extra-base hit Barnes had allowed since June 15. Since that time, Barnes has compiled a 1.32 ERA, allowed a .176 slugging percentage, struck out 27 batters and walked six over 13.2 innings…In his Yankees’ debut, Zach Britton pitched a perfect eighth inning in a 7-2 win over the Royals…The Brewers are expecting to activate Matt Albers (shoulder) prior to Friday night’s game in San Francisco.