Bullpen Report: July 29, 2014

• We talked about Neil Ramirez a bit last night, and although it seemed like he was just going to rest without any injury he was just put on the 15-day DL today. Ramirez has a sore right triceps muscle and he hopefully is back soon for the Cubs. The interesting piece in all of this is that the Cubs apparently really did just want Ramirez to rest but sending someone to the minors for that reason “could be viewed as an attempt to save on a major league salary.”

• Neftali Feliz recorded a save late last night, his second of the season. The good news is that it looks like Feliz is taking the reigns on the closing gig in Texas. The bad news is all of our previous concerns about Feliz and his injury haven’t quite evaporated. Feliz made his bread throwing in the high 90s, but he was maxing out at 93 mph last night.  That’s enough to be a successful major league pitcher, and if he’s getting saves Feliz will have value but it goes without say that a lot of his shine has worn off, and anyone expecting Feliz to return to the Feliz when he first came on the seen will be disappointed.

•  Oof, this was not the performance the Tigers were expecting when they acquired Joakim Soria. Soria was called on two finish the seventh inning this evening, down a run with two men on base but seven batters, six hits and two home runs later Soria exited the game after recording just a single out. All told, Soria allowed both inherited runners to score with an additional four earned runs of his own ballooning his ERA to 3.71 when he entered tonight’s game with a 2.67 ERA.  Still, even after this disaster Soria supports a 1.90 FIP. This performance puts the breaks on some calls to replace Joe Nathan as closer, but Soria’s undoubtedly the better pitcher and Nathan will still have to avoid some poor outings to completely quiet the masses.

• Quick Hits: Casey Janssen allowed a solo shot to Xander Bogaerts but held on for his 17th save of the year.  It’s been relatively quiet on the Steve Cishek trade rumor front and after getting his 27th save tonight, expect Cishek to continue to rack them up for the Marlins for the remainder of the year. Fernando Rodney allowed a single but struck two guys out en route to launching his 29th arrow for the Mariners. And finally, what a disappointing night for Aroldis Chapman, he nailed down his 23rd save but only recorded one strikeout. On the season, Chapman now has 67 strikeouts in only 33.1 innings pitched with a K% inching towards 55%. Incredible.

Closer Grid:

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