Rockies’ bullpen has changed spirit, mood of entire team
cincinnati » ntering Saturday’s game here at drizzly Great American Ball Park, the Rockies were 23-0 when leading after six innings.
Call those morale victories. Not moral victories, morale victories— the kind of victories that lift a team up and keep its spirits high over the long season.
“It’s kind of a new feeling, that’s for sure,” Nolan Arenado said. “It’s been great. This is what good teams do, and I think we are a good team. Our bullpen has done just an unbelievable job and they have been picking us up. Like I said, it’s been great.”
New closer Greg Holland— baseball’s best free-agent acquisition of the offseason, by the way— is 18-for-18 in save opportunities with a 1.02 ERA. Where Rockies fielders used to often cringe at the thought of who might be coming through the revolving bullpen door, now they get pumped up when Holland, Mike Dunn or Adam Ottavino jog to the mound.
As a whole, the Rockies are 20-for-22 in save opportunities, and both times the Rockies blew a save, they ended up winning the game. At Coors Field, the Rockies are 9-for-9 in save chances.
Last year? The Rockies blew 28 saves, third-most in the National League with a save percentage of 56.9 percent, the second worst.
The Giants blew 30 save chances and lost nine games in which they led entering the ninth inning, both major-league highs. That led manager Bruce Bochy to say: “I think more and more we’re realizing how important a closer is. They stabilize your season. Because when you lose games late, it’s a blow. It’s a shot to the chin. And you take enough of ’em, it can wear your team out.”
Clubhouse chemistry and a team’s mood is impossible to measure or quantify, but the Rockies’ clubhouse is a far different place this year. The funereal, postgame gloominess has been replaced by big smiles and hip-hop and Latin jams, depending on who’s picking the tunes. A lot
Eof those good feelings are created, and preserved, by Holland and Co. “We feel like all we have to do is get the lead,” second baseman DJ Lemahieu said. “If we do that, we’re in good shape. Offensively, there isn’t that constant pressure every inning to put more and more on the board.”
Lemahieu knows that Holland won’t be perfect this season and he knows there will be gut-punch losses. He also thinks the Rockies can survive those, as long as they don’t come on a regular basis, as was the case in past seasons.
“Those guys are taking care of the business,” he said. “And another part of this is, if we get the lead and hold it, that means we don’t have to face a closer like (the Dodgers’) Kenley Jansen. We can even pile on runs later.”
Last year, Colorado’s bullpen posted a 5.10 ERA, the sixth-highest in franchise history and the highest since 2004 (5.53). Through 43 games this season, the ERA is 3.87. Toss out struggling right-hander Jordan Lyles’ 8.53 ERA and it drops to 3.17, which would rank third in the NL.
Strikeouts, a reliever’s best friend, are up, too. Colorado’s bullpen is averaging 9.3 strikeouts per nine innings, seventh in the NL. Last season, the bullpen averaged just 8.2 K’s per nine, the second-lowest in franchise history.
Simply put, a better bullpen has transformed the Rockies from wannabe contenders into the real deal.
“It’s a good feeling for the whole team, and the psyche of the team is important,” first-year manager Bud Black said. “When you close out games that you have played well early and expect to win, it sends a surge of confidence through the whole team. The bullpen is critical in that regard.”
Patrick Saunders is the president of the Baseball Writers’ Association of America: psaunders@denverpost.com or @psaundersdp