Bullpen Report: September 8, 2019

• With Emilio Pagan pitching in back to back games, the Rays went with Oliver Drake for the 9th inning last night, who secured his second save of the season. Nick Anderson pitched in the 8th inning in a tie game and remains the obvious second in line, and received the win last night for the Rays.  After his scoreless inning last night, Anderson has now thrown 14 innings for the Rays with a 27 strikeouts against…zero walks. On the year, Anderson has a somewhat inflated ERA of  3.12 but an incredible 2.27 SIERA and 34.3% K-BB%.  After a season of committees the order of operations in Tampa is pretty secure with Anderson –> Pagan with Colin Poche, and Oliver Drake behind them along with Diego Castillo when he’s not being used as the opener.

• Archie Bradley also received the night off last night with the 9th inning lead being split between Andrew Chafin and Jimmie Sherfy who recorded his first save. Sherfy isn’t likely to see too many saves or high leverage innings with Bradley’s job secure and Kevin Ginkel, Andrew Chafin, and Yoan Lopez ahead of him. If something were to happen to Bradley, Chafin would have little chance of being a singular closer but he would likely be the lefty side of a platoon.

• Continuing the trend of closers getting a breather, Tim Hill was called on for the final five outs for the Royals to record his first save of the year with Ian Kennedy getting the night off. In spite of getting the save, Tim Hill is still off the grid with Scott Barlow and Kevin McCarthy ahead of him but he’s the best lefty option they have since Jake Diekman was sent to Oakland.

• And in Houston, with Roberto Osuna pitching on back to back nights, the Astros went to Will Harris for the save against Seattle. With Ryan Pressly still on the shelf, Will Harris is second in line in Houston with Joe Smith and Hector Rondon behind him. Josh James threw a scoreless 8th inning, pitching around a couple of hits with a pair of strikeouts. It’s unlikely that James is given consistent high leverage work with a little bit of gopheritis and huge command issues (13.9% BB%). Still, when James is going well, he has elite swing and miss stuff (16.4% SwStr%) and whether it happens this year or next, it wouldn’t be surprising to see James settle in as a more shut down reliever if he’s not given another chance to be in the rotation.

• Quick Hits: No save in Milwaukee as Hader received the win when the Brewers scored on Brandon Kintzler to walk off in the 9th. Hader threw a perfect two innings with four strikeouts, bringing his total to 119 this year which for comparison purposes, is the same as Mike Soroka this year. Rowan Wick threw in a tie game in the 8th, pitching a scoreless inning and remains ahead of the committee for saves in Chicago while Kimbrel is on the IL. Sean Doolittle threw a perfect inning but it wasn’t in a save situation as he works himself back into that role. His next appearance will likely be for a save or higher leverage situation.  Kirby Yates (40), Taylor Rogers (25), Hansel Robles (20), and Mark Melancon (10) all pitched clean 9ths for saves.