Bullpen’s identity over final six weeks of season is critical
In Colorado’s momentumshifting 3-1 series victory over the Dodgers at Coors Field this past weekend, the team’s Jekylland-Hyde bullpen turned in mixed results — as it has all season.
Thursday’s five-home run disaster — which tied a singlegame franchise record for Colorado relievers while leading to a gut-punch loss — was followed by 5L combined scoreless innings by the bullpen over the next two games, which enabled Ryan McMahon game-winning home runs each night.
Harrison Musgrave, Jake McGee, Scott Oberg and Adam Ottavino made up for a less-thansharp Jon Gray start Friday, and Seunghwan Oh and Bryan Shaw kept the Rockies within striking distance by putting up a pair of zeros Saturday before McMahon’s walk-off home run.
Then Sunday, leading up to Chris Iannetta’s walk-off walk to seal the series, the bullpen’s performance fell somewhere in the middle. It definitely wasn’t nails, giving up two earned runs and the lead over 2M innings, but it held back Los Angeles’ deep bench long enough to enable Colorado heroics in the bottom of the ninth.
In all, it was a Los Angeles series that again left fans wondering how the critical remaining six weeks are going to shake out with the Colorado relievers, even as those relievers themselves maintain solidarity within the clubhouse.
“We know there’s questions and criticism, but in that bullpen, we all have each other’s backs and we’re confident in each other,” Shaw said. “I know what I can do, this team knows what I can do, and the same goes for everyone out there regardless of the ups and downs of this season.”
Are the highly priced unit’s first-half problems destined to bleed into August and September, sinking the team’s
playoff hopes? Or, can Colorado relievers somehow immediately cinch down starting with a grueling road trip at Houston on Tuesday?
After the bullpen posted marginal ERAs in April (4.93) and May (4.04), the unit turned in a major league-worst 7.78 mark in June that coincided with the club’s dismal 11-16 record.
A bounce-back month followed in July, as the bullpen’s ERA nosedived to 3.49, sixth-best in the National League, while Colorado correspondingly (and not coincidentally) posted its second-best month ever with a 17-6 mark that got it back in the divisional hunt.
“We’ve all had our ups and downs this year, but I think July we obviously put it together and showed what we could truly do,” Shaw said. “In that month, we each built off the guy that went out there before, whether he got out of an inherited jam or out of any situation.”
And while Black echoes the Earl Weaver catchphrase that “momentum is only as good as the next day’s starting pitcher,” he also knows the continued performance of what is shaping up to be the best rotation in franchise history could potentially be wasted if the majority of his relievers aren’t up to the task down the stretch.
That doesn’t mean the Colorado bullpen has to be perfect — simply, its occupants just have to limit poor individual outings, shake them quickly when they do go awry and prevent collective implosions when runs are given up.
“We need six of the eight guys going strong,” Black said. “And we need (consistency) — Wade Davis, in July, had 12 outings. He had 11 scoreless besides the one game that got away from him against Houston. Seunghwan Oh, prior to the home run to Cody Bellinger (on Thursday), had 15 outings of scoreless baseball, counting some Toronto outings.
“Those mistakes are going to happen, but we need those strings of solid games from everybody, not just a couple guys.”