Bullpen Report: September 1, 2016

Short and sweet for this four game slate…

Unfortunately for the Atlanta Braves, Arodys Vizcaino is back on the shelf with shoulder inflammation. Fortunately for the Braves and fake baseballers alike, veteran Jim Johnson still has some gas in the tank. August was kind to the 33 year-old right-hander, who picked up saves in 7-of-8 chances with an 18:2 K:BB while allowing just one earned run. And he started off September on the right foot as well. The Braves entered the final frame of tonight’s tilt with the Padres up five runs, but summoned Johnson to the hill to end the Friars’ three-run rally and pick up his 14th save of the season. For a guy that’s green, induces worm burners over 57% of the time and owns a career best 16.4% K-BB%, Jim Johnson should be owned in a few more than 50% of Y! Formats at this point in the season — unless most of those folks at the bottom of the barrell have moved on….

Brandon Kintzler surrendered a hit, but fanned one en route to his 13th save of the season in 14 opportunities. Kintzler needed 14 pitches (10 strikes — five called, two swinging) to seal the 8-5 victory for the Twinkies over the White Sox. While the strikeouts and peripherals are lagging, Kintzler currently owns the best ground ball (63.5% GB%) rate and ERA (1.87) of his career. Green.

Carl Edwards, Jr. notched the first save of his big league career this evening in a 5-4 Cubbies win over the Giants. Edwards needed just 13 pitches (10 strikes — four called, one swinging) to fan Hunter Pence and induce a pair of groundouts off the bats of Brandon Crawford and Joe Panik. Skipper Joe Maddon called on the youngster with Aroldis Chapman racking up 44 pitches over the last two days — including 31 in Wednesday’s shaky outing. Chapman green.

Quick Hitters: Chris Withrow of the Braves and Joe Smith of the Cubs have been activated from the 15-day disabled list, with no immediate impact to the grid. The Cubs wasted no time putting Smith back on the bump, using him for a pair of innings, striking out a trio of Giants to pick up the victory. Will Smith (15) and George Kontos (8) of the Giants along with Kyle Barraclough (26) of the Marlins picked up holds this evening. Entering tonight, Addison Reed (31), Neftali Feliz (29) and Hector Neris (27) led the first division in holds among current non-closers (Betances also has 27 holds).

Closer Grid:

	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
Arizona	Daniel Hudson	Randall Delgado	Jake Barrett
Atlanta	Jim Johnson	Mauricio Cabrera	Shae Simmons	Arodys Vizcaino
Baltimore	Zach Britton	Brad Brach	Mychal Givens	Darren O’Day
Boston	Craig Kimbrel	Brad Ziegler	Clay Buchholz	Koji Uehara
CHI (NL)	Aroldis Chapman	Carl Edwards Jr.	Travis Wood	Hector Rondon
CHI (AL)	David Robertson	Nate Jones	Matt Albers
Cincy	Tony Cingrani	Raisel Iglesias	Michael Lorenzen
Cleveland	Cody Allen	Andrew Miller	Bryan Shaw
Colorado	Adam Ottavino	Jake McGee	Carlos Estevez	Scott Oberg
Detroit	Francisco Rodriguez	Justin Wilson	Alex Wilson
Houston	Ken Giles	Will Harris	Luke Gregerson
KC	Kelvin Herrera	Joakim Soria	Matt Strahm	Wade Davis
LAA	Deolis Guerra	Mike Morin	J.C. Ramirez	Cam Bedrosian
LAD	Kenley Jansen	Joe Blanton	Adam Liberatore
Miami	Fernando Rodney	A.J. Ramos	Kyle Barraclough
Milwaukee	Tyler Thornburg	Corey Knebel	Blaine Boyer
Minnesota	Brandon Kintzler	Ryan Pressly	Taylor Rogers	Glen Perkins
NY (NL)	Jeurys Familia	Addison Reed	Fernando Salas
NY (AL)	Dellin Betances	Tyler Clippard	Adam Warren
Oakland	Ryan Madson	John Axford	Ryan Dull	Sean Doolittle
Philly	Jeanmar Gomez	Hector Neris	Edubray Ramos
Pittsburgh	Tony Watson	Neftali Feliz	Felipe Rivero
St. Louis	Seung Hwan Oh	Kevin Siegrist	Jonathan Broxton
SD	Brandon Maurer	Kevin Quackenbush	Brad Hand	Ryan Buchter
SF	Santiago Casilla	Sergio Romo	Hunter Strickland	Derek Law
Seattle	Edwin Diaz	Steve Cishek	Arquimedes Caminero	Tom Wilhelmsen
TB	Alex Colome	Brad Boxberger	Xavier Cedeno
Texas	Sam Dyson	Jake Diekman	Matt Bush	Jeremy Jeffress
Toronto	Roberto Osuna	Jason Grilli	Joaquin Benoit
Wash.	Mark Melancon	Shawn Kelley	Blake Treinen

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