Bullpen Report: June 15, 2017

Just a few notes from the bullpens today with the left coast games still in progress…

Seung Hwan Oh took the bump in the top of the ninth-inning in a tie game against the Brewers. Oh fanned one, but surrendered a pair of hits including the game winning two-run dinger off the bat of Eric Thames. With Corey Knebel and Jacob Barnes having worked the previous two evenings and Carlos Torres seeing the eighth in tonight’s contest, the Brewers signaled for right-hander Oliver Drake to close out the Cardinals in the home half of the ninth. Drake came on to face the 8-9-1 hitters and promptly fanned the first two and finished off the Cards by inducing a fly ball out from Matt Carpenter to earn his first career save. With Neftali Feliz being designated for assignment, Carlos Torres will slot into the second chair and Drake is looking closely over his shoulder. With the loss, Oh is now 1-3 with 15 saves in 17 chances, a 3.48 ERA (4.03 FIP) and a 8.71 K/9. Both teams remain green.

Hector Neris notched his sixth save of the season in a 19-pitch effort at home against the Red Sox. The right-hander induced a leadoff groundout then sandwiched a free pass between a pair of strikeouts to seal the deal. This is Neris’ second save in in the month of June and just his third since the beginning of May. He was the hot name in the Phillies’ bullpen early in ‘17, so those of you who held on may be rewarded for your patience. Neris likely jumps back into the top spot with the first and second chairs to shake out between a healthy Joaquin Benoit and Pat Neshek. For what it’s worth, Neshek saw the eighth tonight at home in a tie game and eventually earned the win for his clean inning of work — “arguably his best outing of the season.” Going to leave this red for tonight.

A couple of notes regarding changes on the chart:

The Orioles sent Darren O’Day to the disabled list on June 9th, shifting Mychal Givens to the first chair and Richard Bleier to the second chair. O’Day is no longer listed on the chart due to Zach Britton occupying the only DL slot we provide. Mike Wright may normally jump into the second chair as suggested last evening but he’s also a bit banged up with a shoulder and could be headed for the shelf as well. Bleier is a 30-year-old journeyman with little strikeout upside but induces ground balls at a well above average 68% clip.

Jason Grilli is no longer on the chart thanks to his 8.59 FIP and the four homers he surrendered in a 23-pitch effort against the Yankees back on June 3rd — “the worst relief outing in Blue Jays history.” Ryan Tepera and his 16.4% K-BB% and 2.98 FIP over 34.2 frames slides into the second chair. For holds leagues folks, Tepera is three percent and the above mentioned Bleier is zero percent owned in Yahoo! formats.

Closer Grid:

	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
ARI	Fernando Rodney	Archie Bradley	JJ Hoover
ATL	Jim Johnson	Arodys Vizcaino	Jose Ramirez
BAL	Brad Brach	Mychal Givens	Richard Bleier	Zach Britton
BOS	Craig Kimbrel	Matt Barnes	Heath Hembree	Carson Smith
CHC	Wade Davis	Koji Uehara	Carl Edwards Jr.
CWS	David Robertson	Tommy Kahnle	Anthony Swarzak	Nate Jones
CIN	Raisel Iglesias	Michael Lorenzen	Drew Storen
CLE	Cody Allen	Andrew Miller	Bryan Shaw
COL	Greg Holland	Adam Ottavino	Jake McGee
DET	Justin Wilson	Alex Wilson	Shane Greene
HOU	Ken Giles	Will Harris	Michael Feliz
KC	Kelvin Herrera	Joakim Soria	Mike Minor
LAA	Bud Norris	David Hernandez	Blake Parker	Cam Bedrosian
LAD	Kenley Jansen	Pedro Baez	Josh Fields
MIA	A.J. Ramos	David Phelps	Kyle Barraclough
MIL	Corey Knebel	Jacob Barnes	Carlos Torres
MIN	Brandon Kintzler	Matt Belisle	Taylor Rogers	Glen Perkins
NYM	Addison Reed	Jerry Blevins	Paul Sewald	Jeurys Familia
NYY	Dellin Betances	Tyler Clippard	Adam Warren	Aroldis Chapman
OAK	Santiago Casilla	Ryan Madson	Liam Hendriks	Sean Doolittle
PHI	Hector Neris	Pat Neshek	Joaquin Benoit
PIT	Felipe Rivero	Juan Nicasio	Daniel Hudson
STL	Seung Hwan Oh	Trevor Rosenthal	Matt Bowman
SD	Brandon Maurer	Brad Hand	Ryan Buchter	Carter Capps
SF	Mark Melancon	Derek Law	Hunter Strickland
SEA	Edwin Diaz	James Pazos	Nick Vincent
TB	Alex Colome	Danny Farquhar	Tommy Hunter	Brad Boxberger
TEX	Matt Bush	Keone Kela	Jose Leclerc
TOR	Roberto Osuna	Joe Smith	Ryan Tepera
WSH	Matt Albers	Shawn Kelley	Oliver Perez	Koda Glover

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