This is not the first time that I will be pointing out that Brad Hand has been going through a rough patch in recent weeks, but it is the first time in awhile that there are some encouraging signs to report. Hand’s save against the Twins on Sunday — his 34th of the season — was not entirely without drama, as he put LaMonte Wade Jr. on first base with two outs with a hit-by-pitch and then moved him up to second base with a four-pitch walk to Jonathan Schoop. It took seven pitches, but Hand ended the threat by striking out recently-acquired Ryan LaMarre with a 92.9 mph fastball on the inside edge of the strike zone.

It’s that fastball velocity that should have Hand’s fantasy owners breathing a sigh of relief. He threw 14 fastballs, and they averaged 92.1 mph in velocity. This marks the first time in five appearances that his average fastball velocity exceeded 92 mph. However, only one of his 22 total pitches induced a swinging strike, so there is still some reason for concern. While Hand has held the opposition scoreless in five of his last six outings, his SwStr% over that span is still just 8.5 percent.
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• 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.

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To suggest it’s been a tumultuous season for Edwin Diaz would be an understatement. He suffered his seventh blown save serving up a two-run home run to red hot J.T. Realmuto on Friday night but garnered his second win after Pete Alsono drew a bases loaded walk for the literal walk-off victory. Not only did Diaz set a career worst with his seventh blown save, the home run also tied him for another dubious place in history, along with his teammates: Read the rest of this entry »

On a day that was largely devoid of big bullpen developments on the field, an important move was made off of it. On Thursday, the Cubs placed Craig Kimbrel on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to Monday, with right elbow inflammation. President of baseball operations Theo Epstein said that Kimbrel is targeting a return by “the end of next week,” or in other words, not much beyond his eligibility date for activation.

Joe Maddon plans on playing the matchups with save situations while Kimbrel is out. When the Cubs’ closer missed two weeks in August with right knee inflammation, David Phelps, Pedro Strop, Brandon Kintzler, Derek Holland and Rowan Wick all had ninth-inning save opportunities. Each of them could be in the mix this time around, as well as Steve Cishek and Kyle Ryan. Owners should keep tabs on this situation in case Kimbrel’s return is delayed and if someone emerges as a clear primary closing option, but there is no need to pursue one of the potential replacements now.
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For most of the second half, Brad Hand just hasn’t been his usual dominant self, and his problems are getting more acute. Since July 23, the Indians’ closer has a 6.59 ERA, a 2.12 WHIP and an 18.8 percent strikeout rate. Undergirding Hand’s subpar K-rate is an 8.8 percent SwStr%. Until recently, his pitch velocity and movement had been near their normal levels, so there was reason to hope that whatever was hurting Hand’s performance could be easily fixed. However, over his last four outings, his average fastball velocity has been just 91.2 mph, or roughly 2 mph below where it typically had been. The average horizontal movement on Hand’s slider has dipped below five inches in two of his last four appearances, as compared to his season-to-date average of 8.6 inches.

Those changes in Hand’s pitches were not apparent in the results from the first three of those four games. He did not allow a run in any of those performances and gave up only one hit over the three combined innings. On Wednesday night against the White Sox — the fourth of those appearances — things went haywire pretty quickly. Hand started off the top of the ninth inning with an 8-4 lead and began by striking out pinch-hitter Danny Mendick, but that was followed by a Leury García single and a Tim Anderson home run. Now with just a two-run lead, Hand loaded the bases by allowing a single, a walk and then another single. At that point, Terry Francona pulled Hand in favor of Nick Wittgren, who retired Eloy Jiménez and Ryan Goins for his fourth save of the year.
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The Mets’ 11-10 loss to the Nationals on Tuesday night, as heartbreaking as it was, merely reinforced the team’s bullpen hierarchy. Seth Lugo has been used consistently as the closer for the last two-and-a-half weeks (including in the top of the ninth inning in tie games), and he was in line for a two-inning save against the Nationals. He relieved Jacob deGrom in the bottom of the eighth inning after the Mets’ starter gave up a two-run homer to Juan Soto that cut the lead to 5-4, and Lugo retired all three batters he faced. However, when the Mets blew the game open with five runs in the top of the ninth, the save opportunity was gone, and Mickey Callaway opted to let Paul Sewald finish out the game.

In retrospect, it’s easy to say that Callaway should have left Lugo in, as Sewald retired only one of five batters he saw, and he bequeathed a 10-6 lead with runners on first and second base to Luis Avilán. Yet Sewald had been superb since rejoining the Mets from Triple-A Syracuse, allowing one run over 7.1 innings with 13 strikeouts, one walk and four hits allowed. After Sewald departed, Avilán gave up a single to Juan Soto, so Edwin Díaz entered with still only one out and the bases loaded.
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With the season winding down, the high leverage moments never cease. Since bullpens could be a determining factor in many races, it’s going to be intriguing to see how teams monitor usage to keep pitchers fresh. One preemptive strike occurred in Los Angeles with the Dodgers announcing Kenta Maeda will transition to the bullpen in preparation for the playoffs. While part of this can be attributed to his 2.08 ERA in 17.1 innings as a reliever in the playoffs, it’s also a move to depress his pay within his contract. Last night, Maeda worked the last four innings for his first save giving up four hits, three earned runs and striking out five against the Rockies. His owners will need to adjust how to deploy him going forward, but there’s a chance to mine a couple of saves during the Dodgers last 22 games.

For the second straight outing, and second time this season, Roberto Osuna allowed a home run. Yesterday’s home run by Christian Yelich off of Osuna resulted in his first blown save since August 11th and sixth of the season. There’s no need to panic since Osuna’s entrenched as Houston’s closer, but he’s produced a 5.60 ERA, 4.17 xFIP and 1.19 WHIP over 17.2 innings since the All-Star break while allowing five home runs. Following a go ahead home run by George Springer off of Junior Guerra, Josh James recorded the first save of his major league career navigating around two walks with three strikeouts.

As alluded to above, monitoring pitcher usage will be tantamount to success down the stretch. Taylor Rogers notched his 22nd save with a clean ninth inning striking out one. He’s converted his last six save chances for Minnesota anchoring a bullpen which ranks second in the majors in ERA (3.41) since July 24th. However, Rogers owns a 7.82 ERA when working in consecutive games with two losses and two saves in them this year. When he receives a day of rest in between outings, Rogers ERA drops to a minuscule 0.96 with two wins and 20 saves spanning 46.2 innings. Food for thought.

On the other hand, Carlos Martinez thrives this year working in back-to-back outings. He locked down his 17th save of the year logging retiring the last four hitters in a row, two via strikeout. Martinez leads the National League with 14 saves in the second half and pitched in consecutive games 13 times this year closing out all nine save chances in them. He’s also generating the highest ground ball rate (60.8 percent) of his career. Andrew Miller gets his 23rd hold walking one and striking out one in one-third of an inning. Miller’s only allowed two hits against the last 26 batters he’s faced.

Remember when the Atlanta bullpen seemed to struggle despite all of the deadline acquisitions? Mark Melancon secured his seventh straight save on Monday striking out the side on 11 pitches against Toronto. Melancon’s converted all eight of his save chances with the Braves and only given up one earned run his last eight outings spanning 7.1 innings. Shane Greene turned in his 11th straight scoreless appearance with a clean eighth inning and a strikeout. He’s yielded four hits and one walk with 11 strikeouts his last 11 innings.

Quick Hits: Noting the Rays moved up their game with Baltimore to a doubleheader today. Yesterday, Colin Poche recorded his fourth win allowing a hit in a scoreless 10th inning. Emilio Pagan tossed a clean ninth inning striking out one and owns a 23:0 K:BB rate over his last 14 games dating back to July 30th…In an eventual loss, Mychal Givens preserved a tied game logging a clean outing with two strikeouts. He’s surged of late with a win and two saves with a 2.45 ERA, 0.64 WHIP and 15 strikeouts versus one walk his last 11 appearances. Hunter Harvey stranded a runner striking out the only hitter he faced and recorded 10 of his 16 outs via strikeout since his promotion…David Phelps nabs his second win walking one and striking out one on Monday…

No relief appearance from Sunday’s games was more meaningful than Carlos Carrasco’s inning of work against the Rays. Pitching in his first game since being diagnosed with leukemia in June, Carrasco came in for the bottom of the seventh inning with the Indians behind by a 4-1 score. He began by inducing a pair of ground ball outs, and then Carrasco yielded a Tommy Pham double and a Travis d’Arnaud RBI single. He finished off the inning with a third groundout, this one off the bat of Joey Wendle.

The Reds’ bullpen has had its share of tumult of late, and the roller coaster ride continued on Sunday. They entered the day with a doubleheader against the Cardinals just completed and another doubleheader just ahead of them. In the nightcap of Saturday’s twin bill, Raisel Iglesias let a one-run lead and a split slip away, as Harrison Bader’s RBI single tied the game up at 2-2. He left runners on first and second base with no one out for Kevin Gausman, who allowed Matt Carpenter to hit a walk-off RBI single.
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Entering game play on the final day of August, many bullpens will enter September fatigued. With rosters expanding on Sunday, reinforcements will arrive but some teams, it may be too little too late. As for last night, a 15 inning game between the Red Sox and Angels ended in Andrew Cashner’s 11th win. He worked four scoreless innings issuing two walks and striking out three. Brandon Workman entered his save chance last night with a 1.35 ERA his previous 13 appearances and an impressive 21 strikeouts against three walks. After stranding two inherited runners in the eighth inning, Workman returned for the ninth looking for his 10th save. However, Workman walked Brian Goodwin and Mike Trout before getting a fielder’s choice ground out. This left runners on the corners with one out. A single to left field, mishandled badly by J.D. Martinez allowed both runners to score. As of this writing, they both count as earned runs resulting in Workman’s sixth blown save. After the tying run scored, Workman intentionally walked Kole Calhoun before striking out David Fletcher. Then another intentional pass to Andrelton Simmons preceding an inning ending ground out by Matt Thaiss. Read the rest of this entry »

Ryne Stanek did nothing to dispel the José Ureña-as-closer speculation on Thursday night, as he failed to protect the Marlins’ one-run lead over the Reds. He relieved Jarlin García in the top of the eighth inning with two outs and Joey Votto on first base, and began his outing by walking Eugenio Suárez, which put Votto into scoring position. Aristides Aquino’s single brought Votto home and left Stanek with his third blown save.

To his credit, Stanek came back for the ninth inning and kept the game knotted. The Marlins ultimately prevailed in the bottom of the 12th inning, thanks to Harold Ramirez’s walk-off homer off Raisel Iglesias, who had just entered the game. The loss dropped Iglesias to 2-10, and he now has two losses and a blown save over his last four appearances. Over that 2.2-inning span, he has given up four runs on nine hits, including two home runs. Though the sample is obviously small, there may be something to his 16.7 percent ground ball rate and 69.2 percent hard contact rate during this stretch as an explanation for his struggles. It’s time to lay off Iglesias in daily lineup leagues and to pick up Michael Lorenzen as insurance.
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