Black: “No simple answer” to bullpen woes
Amid the Rockies’ recent free-fall from first to fourth place in the National League West — and with the team’s best reliever, Adam Ottavino, on the disabled list — manager Bud Black’s walked a well-worn path from dugout to mound and back, searching and switching for a bullpen stability he’s yet to find.
Over the past 10 games, in which the Rockies are 2-8, Colorado relievers have an MLBworst 8.41 ERA as, correspondingly, pieces have shuffled in the bullpen with the promotions of Jeff Hoffman, Sam Howard and Jerry Vasto from Triple-A in place of the injured Mike Dunn and Scott Oberg as well as Harrison Musgrave (bereavement list).
But even those call-ups, while staffing Colorado with an array of fresh arms with potential, haven’t altered the main issue plaguing Black. How does the old-school pitching traditionalist put on a patient face and work through Colorado’s startling bullpen ineptitude?
“You’ve got to keep pushing
through it,” Black said. “There’s a lot of work done on a number of levels — pitching mechanics, game strategy, really bearing down on scouting reports and trying to pitch to them — but more than anything, there’s a collective momentum that has to occur where one guy gets going, and then the next guy.
“That’s where we’ve got to get to — it’s sort of working in reversal right now.”
Colorado’s starters haven’t been helping the cause exasperated by struggling, highly-paid bullpen veterans in Bryan Shaw ($7.5 million this season, 7.03 ERA), Dunn ($7 million, 9.00) and Chris Rusin ($1.29 million, 7.81).
Despite the fact the Rockies are only one of two teams in the major leagues that’s started the same five pitchers all season — the other being the reigning World Series champion Astros — that durability hasn’t translated into effective outings as of late.
Rockies starters posted a National League-worst 6.84 ERA over the recent 10-game nosedive heading into Tuesday’s series opener against the Phillies, logging just 52M innings in that time frame, third-worst in the league.
“Outs in the seventh inning, outs in the eighth inning would be great, especially with what we’re going through now (with the bullpen),” Black said.
Meanwhile, Ottavino’s return on the Philadelphia leg of the two-city road trip seems imminent, as he threw a high-intensity bullpen session followed by a few live at-bats against Ryan McMahon and Noel Cuevas prior to Tuesday’s game.
But it will take more than his team-leading 0.95 ERA, and the NL saves leader in Wade Davis, to steady Colorado’s winning probability between the time Black grabs the ball from the starter and when opposing lineups must face the tall task posed by the Rockies’ shutdown duo in the final couple of frames.
“There’s really no simple answer to this,” Black said. “You know that if guys are healthy, and you keep talking and keep working, that eventually they’re going to start making pitches. There’s such a huge confidence (aspect) to this as well — when guys get on their feet, and really get going, you see better pitches being made. When you’re going in reverse, you become a little tentative. We’ve got to get past that, keep pitching aggressive, throwing strikes, trusting our stuff.”
Footnotes. The Rockies continue to tinker with the 25-man roster, recalling catcher Tom Murphy from Triple-A Albuquerque ahead of Tuesday’s game and immediately plugging him into the lineup in the eight spot. In 49 games at Triple-A, Murphy was batting .289 with 14 doubles, two triples, 16 home runs and 45 RBIs. Outfielder Mike Tauchman was optioned with the move… Vasto, a rookie from Atlantic Highlands, N.J. (Henry Hudson Regional HS) about 90 minutes south of Philadelphia, had a boisterous fan club on hand during batting practice to cheer him on. The southpaw said between 70 and 100 of his friends and family came to Citizens Bank Park to support him.