Bullpen Report: May 8, 2018

Not a particularly busy or thrilling night across the bullpens so here are a few nuggets of interest from last night…

• The Padres lost to the Nationals last night but Phil Maton threw a scoreless inning with a walk and a strikeout. In 13 innings this year Maton has 14 strikeouts and an unimpressive 7 walks leading to a 2.86 FIP and 4.10 SIERA but his minor league strikeout rates and 15.5% SwStr% this year suggest there is room to grow in the K department. We have Kirby Yates and Craig Stammen on the grid below but if Maton can up his strikeouts without walking the world, he could become a sneaky contributor in deep leagues.

• Keone Kela has struggled a bit of late in the ERA department, allowing five runs in his previous two appearances but he threw a scoreless inning last night, striking out two batters for his 7th save of the year. While Kela supports a 6.00 ERA rings the alarm, his 2.75 FIP and 3.40 SIERA suggest brighter days ahead. If Kela is able to string together a few good outings we will remove the yellow tag on him in the grid. Jose Leclerc pitched in the eight allowing a hit and an unearned run but also struck out two batters, lowering his ERA to 2.45. Jake Diekman pitched in the eighth, throwing a scoreless inning while also allowing a walk, something that is a legitimate issue as he now has issued 12 free passes in only 12.1 innings. Diekman has been setting up Kela thus far, so he’s second in line on the grid but if something were to happen to Kela I wouldn’t be surprised to see Leclerc leapfrog him for saves as he’s a righty with more swing and miss stuff.

• Jeurys Familia threw 15 pitches last night, getting two strikeouts and his 10th save as he held onto the one-run lead against the Reds. Watching Familia, I never feel too confident that he knows where the ball is going but he’s had a very solid season thus far. In spite of 3 blown saves, Familiar has a 2.05 FIP and 3.02 SIERA and his 12.5% SwStr% is up from his disastrous 2016, even if it’s not quite as good as peak Familia. While the days of the 11-1 Mets are long gone, they should still be competitive all year leading to solid save totals for Familia as a tier 2 closer.

• The Phillies won 11-0 but in that blowout was an interesting name – Seranthony Dominguez, who made his MLB debut pitching a perfect frame with one strikeout. Dominguez threw 13 impressive innings in AA to start the season and after throwing in three games in AAA he was called up to the majors last night. Dominguez threw 11 fastballs and 6 sliders with his heat nearly touching triple digits while averaging 97.7 mph. Matt Gelb has a great piece on the Athletic about his rapid rise and if he keeps pitching like he did last night, Dominguez could continue his rise and see some higher leverage innings.