Archive for Cody Allen

We often begin this column with the grisly details of the latest reliever meltdown. So why not start things off this time with some good news?

A pair of closers who had forgettable 2018 seasons are off to a nice start in 2019. Ken Giles recorded his third save in as many tries on Tuesday, securing the Blue Jays’ 7-5 win over the Red Sox. He has yet to allow a run in 5.2 innings, though this appearance was a little more eventful than his past ones from this season. Giles issued his first walk of the year, which came on the heels of a Dustin Pedroia leadoff single. Then he needed all of three pitches to retire Blake Swihart and Andrew Benintendi, and after going to a full count on Mookie Betts, Giles finished him off by getting him to chase a low slider.
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With a 15.4 percent swinging strike rate, 32.6 percent strikeout rate, 5.3 percent walk rate and 24.1 percent soft contact rate, Trevor May has been doing just about everything you would want to see from a closer. Yet Paul Molitor has been faithfully sticking with Trevor Hildenberger as his closer in recent weeks, even with the latter Trevor posting a 5.74 ERA since the Twins traded Fernando Rodney to the Athletics.
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It’s probably a stretch to say that Brad Boxberger is sharing the Diamondbacks’ closer duties, but for the second night in a row, he was not alone in a ninth-inning save situation. In Wednesday night’s series finale against the Giants, Andrew Chafin was brought out to begin the ninth inning against Brandon Crawford. Once Chafin got the strikeout, he gave way to Boxberger, who finished off the 3-1 win. Then on Thursday night, the Diamondbacks had another 3-1 lead to protect — this time, against the Dodgers. Once again, a lefty (Cody Bellinger) led off, and it was Chafin who was assigned to retire him. The déjà vu continued, as Chafin struck Bellinger out, and he was followed by Boxberger, who struck out Chris Taylor and Yasiel Puig.
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As the trade deadline approached, it seemed as if about half of the relievers on non-contending teams were rumored to get traded. There was just not enough demand to meet the supply, so many of those relievers are staying put for the time being. Just among current closers, here’s who did not get moved: Shane Greene, Raisel Iglesias, Kyle Barraclough, Fernando Rodney, Sergio Romo, Kirby Yates, Mychal Givens and Blake Parker. Some of these relievers could still get dealt if they can pass through waivers, so if you’ve been stashing the likes of Joe Jimenez, Jared Hughes or Drew Steckenrider, don’t drop them just yet.
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On Tuesday night, the Twins shut out the Blue Jays, 5-0, and while it was a superb performance by Jose Berrios, there wasn’t much of interest as far as relief work goes.

Or so I thought. A commenter for Wednesday morning’s Bullpen Report, docgooden85, pointed out a few things that are worth noting for those speculating on future Twins saves. Trevor Hildenberger, who we have listed in the “First Up” column in the closer’s grid, did pitch the eighth inning, but in the aftermath of a couple of recent ineffective performances, he did it with a five-run lead. Also, in Ryan Pressly (1.38 ERA and 18 strikeouts over his last 13 innings) and the recovering Addison Reed (elbow impingement), Hildenberger has a couple of rivals for saves down the stretch, should the Twins trade Fernando Rodney.
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This escalated pretty quickly.

Sean Doolittle has a strained toe. Dave Martinez wasn’t sure about his availability today but it seems like a minor issue

— Jamal Collier (@JamalCollier) July 8, 2018

Nats have placed Sean Doolittle on the DL with left toe inflammation. Jefry Rodriguez optioned. Austin Voth and Wander Suero called up.

— Dan Kolko (@masnKolko) July 10, 2018

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For the second game in a row, an Angels reliever made the ninth inning a little too interesting. On Saturday, closer Blake Parker blew a one-run lead in an eventual 3-2 extra-innings loss to the Rangers. When the Angels pulled into the ninth inning of Sunday’s series finale with a two-run lead, Mike Scioscia turned to Justin Anderson to get the save. Anderson was one pitch away from retiring the side, but Ronald Guzman sat on an inside full-count fastball to give the Rangers a baserunner. Then he walked Joey Gallo on a pitch that appeared to catch the corner of the strike zone and loaded the bases with a third straight full-count walk, this time to Shin-Soo Choo. Scioscia stuck with Anderson, who stranded all three runners by inducing a shallow fly ball from Isiah Kiner-Falefa.

In all likelihood, Parker sat out Sunday’s game due to having pitched on both Friday and Saturday, though he threw all of four pitches in the first of those appearances. It’s probably too early to read anything into Anderson getting the save chance on Sunday, but this situation bears monitoring.
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As we enter the weekend, the Milwaukee bullpen continues to be the most volatile situation to speculate for saves. The word from the Brewers today regarding Corey Knebel was unfortunately bad news. According to the Milwaukee manager, Craig Counsell, Knebel will miss “a minimum of six weeks” with his left hamstring strain. For those who missed the injury, it was a lot worse than it sounds. Knebel fell to the ground after delivering a pitch in the 9^th inning down 6 to 0 in Thursday night’s game against the Cubs.

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• White Sox at Yankees: David Robertson furnished save #34. D-Rob has only blown 2 saves all year this year and has done an awfully good job displacing Mariano Rivera. In fact, as a closer, Mariano Rivera never reached a 30% K-Rate and his career contact rate was 79.7%. D-Rob has a sub-70% contact rate this year and could be even better next year assuming the luck stats (BABIP based on his inflated line drive rate this year; HR/FB and LOB%) all take a step forward next year. It will be interesting to see where D-Rob lands next year considering he deserves a big payday and the Yankees still have another dominate K%(39.9%)/Contact%(70%) reliever in Dellin Betances. D-Rob got the 10th best K%-BB% in baseball right now: 28.5% tied with Koji Uehara.
• Rays at Blue Jays: Casey Janssen has offset an awful K-rate with the best BB-rate of his career, but he walked Wil Myers tonight to start the 9th and blew a save after a couple of singles. Brad Boxberger pulls an Armando Benitez and gives up a 2R-HR to Dioner Navarro and a double to Colby Rasmus. We were getting pretty spoiled with Boxberger: 8 scoreless innings since August 10th with a 13:1 K:BB ratio and only 3 hits. Between Koji Uehara yesterday as well as Boxberger and Ken Giles today, the R2M (Regression to the Means) Monster hit me hard this weekend.

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