Bullpen Report: May 31, 2017

Ever since Matt Bush took over the closer’s role for the Rangers in mid-April, I haven’t spent much time on him in this space. I haven’t had to — he has been automatic. Through his first 15 appearances as closer, Bush had not allowed an earned run and was 6-for-6 in save opportunities.

The string of earned run-free innings and converted saves ended on Wednesday night. Bush was one out away from his seventh save, protecting a 4-3 lead against the Rays, when Kevin Kiermaier took a first-pitch fastball over the wall in right-center. That was the only baserunner Bush allowed, so despite the blemish on his stat line, he still has a 1.37 ERA and an 0.97 WHIP on the season.

Incredibly, the home run was only the third extra-base hit allowed by Bush, who entered the game with an .059 Iso allowed. Yet it’s not as if the Rangers’ closer is some sort of ground ball machine. Bush has a 40.4 percent ground ball rate, and prior to Wednesday’s outing, he allowed opponents to register an average flyball distance of 332 feet (per Baseball Savant). Though he induces a lot of swings, since becoming closer, Bush has a pedestrian swinging strike rate of 10.0 percent. With as much airborne contact as Bush allows, one has to wonder if he has some rough outings ahead.

We shouldn’t make much out of Bush blowing a one-run lead, but there may be some reason to be concerned about his mild flyball tendencies. Bush’s most likely replacement, Keone Kela, has been on a nice run of his own (0.79 ERA, 16 K, 4 BB over his last 11 1/3 innings), but he has been displaying even stronger flyball tendencies. Like Bush, Kela works frequently in the zone, but he is far better at freezing batters. During his recent strong stretch comprising 10 appearances, Kela has a robust called strike rate of 24 percent.

I don’t think Bush is close to losing his job, but he could be vulnerable over the weeks to come. Kela, on the other hand, could be slightly better suited for the role, so as far as speculative closer-in-waiting pickups go, he is not a bad one.

The other closer to blow a save on Wednesday was Fernando Rodney. If it seemed like it had been a while since he had blown one, that’s because it was. Rodney’s last failed save attempt was on April 29 against the Rockies, so he was thisclose to making it through May without a blown save. Given that Rodney had thrown 55 percent of his pitches for strikes over his previous nine May appearances, it was just a matter of time before he got himself into trouble.

Against the Pirates on Wednesday, Rodney walked the first two batters. That left him, and his Diamondbacks teammates, with little room for error. It was, in fact, a Paul Goldschmidt error that loaded the bases, and Alen Hanson scored the tying run on a subsequent double-play ball hit by Jordy Mercer.

This was far from a meltdown for Rodney, but the outing shows how his control issues create the potential for a blown save in any given appearance. Earlier in the season, I would have been inclined to speculate on J.J. Hoover, as it was hard to see manager Torey Lovullo committing Archie Bradley to the closer role. However, Bradley is no longer making multiple-inning appearances, and the emergence of Zack Godley makes his presence in the rotation less necessary. With the need to use Bradley as a long reliever or starter less imperative, it seems more likely now that he could be the Diamondbacks’ closer at some point in the coming weeks.

While Rodney blew the lead, the game was not settled until the 14th inning. Pirates closer Tony Watson came out for the top of the 10th inning to keep the game at a tie, and he pitched a perfect inning. That was a welcome departure from his previous three outings, in which he allowed four runs on seven hits and a walk and blew two saves. Stephen J. Nesbitt of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette broke down what went wrong for Watson in Monday’s blown save in the series opener, and poor changeup location was one of the culprits.

It appears that has been an issue for Watson this season, as he has been getting less horizontal movement on the pitch. As shown in the table below, Watson’s changeup has yielded a .250 Iso this season, as compared with rates that were .083 or lower for each of the previous four seasons. If he continues to allow extra-base hits on his normally-reliable changeup, it won’t be hard to imagine Felipe Rivero taking over the closer’s role in the not-too-distant future.

Benjamin Pasinkoff sounded the alarms on Watson in the previous Bullpen Report, and he also alerted us to the apparent closer-by-committee situation in San Diego. On Wednesday, it was Brandon Maurer once again who got the save. That’s three saves in four days for Maurer, who did not allow a hit, a walk or a run in any of the three appearances. He may not get all of the Padres’ save chances to himself, but at least he seems to have worked out of the funk that plagued him for much of May.

Saves roundup: Alex Colome (15), Craig Kimbrel (15), Seung Hwan Oh (12), Roberto Osuna (11), Bud Norris (10), Maurer (8), Santiago Casilla (8), Justin Wilson (5).

Other closer activity: Mark Melancon pitched the ninth inning, entering the game with the Giants trailing the Nationals, 3-1. He tossed a perfect inning with two strikeouts.

Closer Grid:

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