Lefthanded relief still a shortcoming
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Roughly 30 times in the first 10 days of the regular season, an Astros pitcher will be tasked with getting out baseball’s reigning No. 1 Astros killer: Robinson Cano.
Many of these battles will of course fall on their starting pitchers. But in the instances the Astros are into their bullpen, their personnel appears no better equipped to retire the Seattle Mariners’ lefthanded-hitting slugger than it was last year.
The lefthanded relief issue that plagued the Astros last season remains unchanged with less than two weeks until opening day. They are poised to enter April with Tony Sipp as the only lefthander in their eightman bullpen, and Sipp’s inauspicious spring has thus far done nothing to indicate a bounce-back
season after a careerworst 2016.
The void of a reliable matchup lefty reliever is no insignificant problem for a team with World Series aspirations in a division featuring lefthanded hitters like Cano, his teammate Kyle Seager, and the Rangers’ Rougned Odor and Nomar Mazara. Unless Sipp turns things around, the Astros’ top bullpen option when needing to retire a lefty might be righthander Chris Devenski.
No reinforcements
Astros general manager Jeff Luhnow essentially doubled down on Sipp by not acquiring one of the proven lefthanded relievers available in the offseason, be it Jerry Blevins or Boone Logan in a freeagent deal or the Detroit Tigers’ Justin Wilson in a trade. The decision to not address the deficiency was puzzling at the time and is only more so five weeks into spring training.
Through five Grapefruit League outings, Sipp — owed $6 million this year and another $6 million next year — has allowed three earned runs on eight hits and five walks in five innings. The split-finger fastball that was so effective in 2015 still closer emulates its inferior form of 2016, when the pitcher had a 4.95 ERA and allowed 2.47 home runs per nine innings.
No easy fix exists for the Astros. Reymin Guduan and Ashur Tolliver are the only other two lefthanded relievers on their 40-man roster, but neither was good enough to crack the opening-day bullpen, having already been optioned to minor league camp. Framber Valdez has emerged as an intriguing prospect but isn’t yet a candidate to make the Astros.
And so the team’s most likely route is to utilize their righthanders to try to get out lefthanders. Devenski held lefties to a .639 OPS last season. The Astros feel James Hoyt can neutralize lefties with his splitter. Their three late-inning relievers, Will Harris, Luke Gregerson and closer Ken Giles, are somewhat platoon neutral.
“As far as I’m concerned, we have a very strong back end of the bullpen,” Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. “We’ve got some middle relief guys, depending on who makes the team, that will handle some lefties. I still believe in Tony. But obviously, it’s a source of conversation, and it’s also something that we’re looking at.”
Hinch also acknowledged that he thinks mechanical adjustments Sipp has worked on this spring are weighing on the reliever.
Thinking too much?
“At some point,” Hinch said, “he’s just got to let his guard down and go out and worry more about competing, less about the mechanical tweaks. I think he’s really trying to be perfect with his delivery — his posture, his grip … he’s flirted with some different arm angles. He looks like a player who’s looking for solutions.”
Sipp has only a couple more spring outings to find them. Come April 3 and the first of seven matchups in 10 days against the Mariners, the Astros’ shortcomings in the lefthanded relief department will only be magnified.