Archive for Relievers

In my previous column, I looked at what went right and what went wrong (mostly wrong) with my team in the Tout Wars mixed auction league in regard to the five hitting categories. This time, I am turning my attention to my team’s performance in the pitching categories. With a fourth-place finish in these categories, it’s a less painful exercise than the last one, but not much separated my team from the two teams tied for eighth place. I was nowhere close to Tim Heaney’s league-leading 68 points, so this account of my pitching staff will include some cautionary tales.
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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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In Thursday morning’s Bullpen Report, Greg Jewett noted that the just-activated Aroldis Chapman was going to get eased back into the closer’s role for the Yankees. In his first appearance in nearly a month, Chapman came in to pitch the eighth inning with a two-run deficit against the Red Sox on Thursday night, but there was nothing about it that looked like “easing.” His first pitch resulted in a Rafael Devers line drive single, and two batters later, Devers moved into scoring position on a Jackie Bradley Jr. walk. After striking out the struggling Sandy Leon, Chapman put the Yankees three more runs in the hole by serving up a slider that Mookie Betts turned on for a home run.
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It was Zach Britton, and not Dellin Betances, who got the save for the Yankees in their 3-2 win over the Red Sox in Tuesday night’s series opener. I have made Britton and Betances co-closers in the grid below, with both receiving the “Hot Seat” label. However, it’s not Britton’s adventure of an inning or Betances’ recent struggles that have put them on the hot seat, but rather that Aroldis Chapman could return as soon as Wednesday. It appears that Chapman’s worst-case scenario is a Thursday return, in the event that Aaron Boone wants to give the lefty an additional day of rest following Monday’s sim game.
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Adam Conley did not have a save opportunity on Sunday against the Phillies, but nonetheless, I have moved him to the head of the Marlins’ closer committee in the grid. Don Mattingly, like many managers, will sometimes use his closer with a four-run lead in the ninth inning, and that’s what he did on Sunday. With a 6-2 lead, Conley retired the first two batters, but he allowed a hard-hit Aaron Altherr double followed by Roman Quinn’s RBI single. The lefty could have limited the damage to the lone run if Starlin Castro had not been eaten up by a Cesar Hernandez grounder, but the error allowed the Phillies to cut the lead to 6-4. Then the rally ended when Conley struck out Rhys Hoskins.
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Torey Lovullo did not have to wait long to test out his new closer committee. One night after Lovullo told reporters that he was replacing Brad Boxberger with a group of relievers, the Diamondbacks’ bullpen worked on preserving a one-run lead against the Rockies with two outs in the seventh inning. That’s when Zack Greinke departed with a runner on second base. Lovullo began with lefty Andrew Chafin, who was set to face Gerardo Parra and Charlie Blackmon. Chafin failed to get the final out against both pinch-hitter Chris Iannetta and Blackmon, as he walked them both. Brad Ziegler had to come in against DJ LeMahieu and do what Brad Ziegler does — get a ground ball out.
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For someone who had managed to pile up 28 saves, Bud Norris never seemed to have a firm grasp on the Cardinals’ closer role. Now he has lost his grip on the job entirely.

On Sunday, Mike Shildt named Carlos Martinez as the team’s new closer, and Norris is being moved to a lower-leverage role, albeit one that will still involve the later innings. Martinez had already been called upon to close out Wednesday’s 7-6 win over the Nationals, as Norris was unavailable, and then he recorded his first save as the team’s official closer on Sunday. His 1-2-3 ninth inning finished off a 5-2 win over the Tigers.
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Thursday’s slate was short on games — just four of them — but it was not totally devoid of closer developments. Two of the contests went to extra innings, and in the case of the Braves-Diamondbacks game, closer failure played a role in the game going beyond regulation. The Braves rolled into the bottom of the ninth inning with a 6-4 lead, but Brian Snitker did not have A.J. Minter to close out the game, since he had thrown 36 pitches in Wednesday’s loss to the Red Sox. Instead, Snitker turned to Jesse Biddle, who entered with a streak of nine straight appearances without an earned run, covering 8.1 innings.
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Heading into Tuesday night’s game against the Nationals, we had already been given an indication that if the Cardinals needed a closer, they were not likely to go with Bud Norris. Mike Shildt told reporters that he was probably going to avoid using his incumbent closer on the night after he had given up Bryce Harper’s game-tying home run, which came the day after he yielded back-to-back 10th inning homers to Eugenio Suarez and Brandon Dixon. In fact, neither Norris nor Carlos Martinez were available for Tuesday night’s game against the Nationals, so Shildt set out to use Jordan Hicks as his closer, should he need one.
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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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