Dombrowski defends
Faith in leaky ’pen
CHICAGO — Just after the July 31 trade deadline, Dave Dombrowski was brimming with optimism about how it was OK that the Red Sox did not make a trade to improve their bullpen.
Yesterday, the day after the final trade deadline in which the Red Sox once again could not pull off a deal for another reliever, Dombrowski once again was in chief cheerleader mode about a relief corps that has been absolutely mediocre and truly concerning since the All-Star break.
Apparently, no matter what your eyes tell you, high hopes still equate to high standards these days when it comes to how the Red Sox view their bullpen.
Craig Kimbrel has not been an elite closer in the second half, unless a 1.541 WHIP, .808 OPS, 5.11 ERA rates as best-closer-in-thebusiness standards these days.
Dombrowski certainly was correct on July 31, when he cited Ryan Brasier as being better or at least comparable to any other reliever the Red Sox could have traded for. But on that day he also lumped in Tyler Thornburg and Joe Kelly as part of that trio that could not be improved upon.
Kelly did have a better August than July, but he has not yet earned the trust of manager Alex Cora to be used in highleverage situations.
And Thornburg has been giving up runs every other outing these days and is dealing with a 1.475 WHIP and 5.31 ERA after his first 22 appearances, so there’s no trend to applaud there.
Dombrowski is right to mention that the bullpen should benefit once Steven Wright gets involved and some of the starters like Chris Sale and David Price return and provide innings that will ease the burden.
But the Red Sox bullpen issued the fourth most walks of any ballclub last month, and has been in the middle of the pack statistically when it comes to overall performance since the break.
For a baseball team with an extraordinary record, the Red Sox bullpen has been extraordinarily average of late.
That level of play tends to backfire in October, which is what made Dombrowski’s defense of the bullpen yesterday ring more hollow than it did a month ago, after which the bullpen did not improve.
Maybe September will prove him right.
But as the month dawned, the burden of proof rested rather heavily on his shoulders.
“No, it doesn’t make me uncomfortable,” said Dombrowski about the recent stretch of poor performances from his bullpen. “I mean, our pitching has been struggling a little bit over the last dozen games, starting and bullpen, so we have to straighten that out a little bit. But I think that’s doable.”
He mentioned how a rebound in health from Eduardo Rodriguez, Sale and Price will lift everybody else’s fortunes.
And as far as going off of what we’ve all seen lately and what’s freshest in everybody’s minds, well, that’s only temporary according to Dombrowski.
“We really like the way the back end of our bullpen guys have performed for the whole season — they’re going through a little bit of a slump, but we’ll get them straightened out, that happens,” said Dombrowski, who quickly reframed the question into a larger perspective, a reasonable move on his part.
Making a move just to make a move is not always going to pay an instant dividend.
“It’s also interesting you have the tendency to look at your own pitchers but when you look at a lot of the pitchers who had been discussed around the trading deadline from a bullpen perspective, a lot of them have scuffled, too,” said Dombrowski. “Just because you mention names doesn’t necessarily mean they make you better at that particular point. It may be a different name. We feel comfortable that we will straighten things out.”
In discussing the recent scuffling of Kimbrel, Barnes and Heath Hembree, Dombrowski said their velocity is still there, and then alluded to how “sometimes they have little nicks that are affecting them in how they are performing that I know about that you don’t know about and they aren’t going to tell you because it is not per se an ‘injury,’ but I’m aware of those things. A lot of times guys are fighting through that.”
Dombrowski said Kelly’s velocity is better and so is his overall performance.
About Thornburg, Dombrowski conceded he “has sort of hit a plateau and hasn’t elevated his game.”
All in all, said Dombrowski about the bullpen, “We feel good.”
That’s for sure. But to be most fair, let’s check back in a month and see how everybody’s feeling then.