GDT 9/10/20 Philadelphia Phillies (Arrieta) @ Miami Marlins (Alcantara)

[Philsmania]

And Harper has been a liability both at the plate and in the field.

[Philsmania]

Can anyone remember when we last had a good bullpen?

[EDmuch]

BK (before Klentak)

[zambonir]

Statistically we do have the worst WHIP and ERA in MLB but I don't think that was the case a few days ago, and it's also not the case if you subtract the guys who are gone. Unfortunately, the new guys are catching up.

Still a luxury to complain about the bullpen, first time in seven years we've had good enough hitters and starters to where it mattered. And yet we're still a playoff team.

Remember, all of our "exciting comeback wins" are also the other team's bullpen being as bad as ours often is.

[HopeSpringsEternal]

Yankees bullpen has had a tough couple of weeks.

[zambonir]

And they were one of the great and rare success stories last year, health-wise and performance-wise. Nats bullpen also wasn't much better than ours last year - probably worse statistically - though they got better when it counted. Then they went out and signed the guy who lost Game 7 of the World Series for a bunch of money and I think we tagged him twice last week (and Hudson too).

Bullpens are the ultimate small sample. The problem here is we seem to have a group of pretty good - though hardly great - pitchers nosediving at roughly the same time. Hector is now our top guy again, Hunter's back on a downswing, and none of our trade acquisitions have had an upswing yet.

At the end of the day the season still turns on the offense continuing to produce - hopefully when Harper turns on the light again someone else's won't turn off - and the 3-6 starters keeping us in more games than not. We go .500 the rest of the way that's still 31 wins and a playoff berth, though probably not the best possible playoff berth.

Where the bullpen will cost us is in the actual playoffs... but the fact that they stink now doesn't actually mean they will stink for five days in October.

[andyb]

Who gets the second start tomorrow? Irvin or Rosso?

Not sure there is a great answer for the bullpen here. Since everyone is terrible it probably would be better for Girardi to not try to use pitchers in roles like Hunter every time in the 8th. He is starting to overuse Hunter and Workman which means he is underusing the bottom of the bullpen (Brogdon, Suarez, Hale). If everyone sucks, maybe the fresh pitchers that suck will be better than the tired pitchers that suck.

[andyb]

Who gets the second start tomorrow? Irvin or Rosso?

I guess we'll see both of them this weekend. De Los Santos still hanging around in Lehigh Valley? Give Medina that start because absolutely nobody has scouted him?

[gmwannabe]

another tough loss. Romero with one batter, to end the inning, and then lifted. he blew dickerson away with a fastball. with as lousy as they have been, i think might be time for girardi to abandon the right-lefty baseball thinking and use the best arm. maybe that will change something. The season will be decided by this series and it is off to a bad start. good luck.
gm

[zambonir]

But who knows. Maybe Romero blows it if he comes back out, maybe Neris blows it if he pitches a different inning. I'm sure Joe was thinking he would get to use Romero today, possibly even for full multiple innings, by doing that. He was also hoping to get that fourth run and then he might have used two entirely different pitchers. He's very by the book, and is supposed to be a master of bullpen management and usage, but I never really believed that mattered, and when they're all pitching badly it definitely doesn't!

[el-pietro]

Romero faced two batters, gave up a hit before he got the out. My thought at the time was do you let him come in and he only has to face one batter if he struggles, or would he have had a better chance of being allowed to pitch the next inning if he had gotten a quick out?

[andyb]

Just warming up for the inning and facing one batter would mean he needed to do his pre-inning warmup pitches also. Going into a 2nd inning, even if for only 1 out, would likely have taken Romero out of today's game.

I have no problem with pulling Romero there. I just wish everyone else was not terrible. We should be able to hold a 3-run lead against the Marlins. Maybe this was actually the time to get a second inning out of Neris.

I also might have put in one of the back end guys (Suarez or Brogdon or Hale) just to see if we could get 3 outs from a fresh arm. At some point you need to go a bit deeper in your bullpen when nobody is a sure thing.

[Patchmk88]

I wonder why we don’t go to Parker more. He seems to have pitched well when given the chance.

[Austinfan]

What do all our veteran RPs we pick up seem to have in common?
They're all "junk ballers" who struggle with command, it seems.
Hunter looked like he turned the corner a couple weeks ago, unfortunately he then ran into a Mack Truck.
Workman is trash, Hale is trash, Parker at least seems effective in long relief.

Neris, Romero, Morgan when he returns, what else we got? Alvarez gone until October.
The sad part is Pivetta and Velasquez were worse in the pen than as starters.

[zambonir]

Of the four new guys Phelps was supposed to be the sure thing and Hembree an acceptable middle innings option. They handed Workman the closer job because he's been a closer and had been good last year, but that was also true of the guy he replaced. At the time it had to be done though.

Morgan hasn't been good this year either. Just uniformly, that's the issue, we started with a bullpen full of fungible lottery tickets that all failed, with two of our top three guys failing along with them (and Hunter was #4). Now we have two good lottery tickets (Romero and Parker) but these supposedly proven guys aren't getting it done. Hunter has still been better than any of the new guys over the past two weeks, just not over the past two games.

[Philsmania]

Alvarez gone until October.

I can't help but wonder if the nature of Alvarez's injury will end up being not too dissimilar to a hitter getting beaned in the head or face, an injury that is just as much psychological as it is physical.

Of the four new guys Phelps was supposed to be the sure thing....

I know I said this about Workman previously, but Phelps really is reminding me of Turk Wendell in 2001 in terms of how he just fell off a cliff after the Phillies got him. In the case of Wendell, he had been hiding an injury with the Mets but managed to pitch effectively through it until he could not do so anymore, coincidentally at the point he was traded to the Phillies. I don't know what Phelps's issue is.

[zambonir]

An injury is certainly possible with Phelps especially given his history. But 3 1/2 innings is really no indication of anything. Unfortunately the nature of this season is all trees, no forest.

I was more optimistic about Alvarez, but obviously the delicate nature of the area means it needs a lot more rest and immobility compared to other deep, serious bruises.

[Philsmania]

I was more optimistic about Alvarez, but obviously the delicate nature of the area means it needs a lot more rest and immobility compared to other deep, serious bruises.

I shouldn't have chuckled but I did.