TORONTO – Two months into the season, there still remains opportunity in the Toronto Blue Jays bullpen, and that’s not a good thing. Yes, the relief corps has stabilized since an especially concerning April, and the move to defined roles has helped, but really, this should have been sorted out by now.
The difference between last place, where the Blue Jays sit in the AL East, and first place, which they began Thursday four games out of, can be found in large degree in the untenable number of games they’ve blown so far in 2015.
Consider that they’ve managed to convert only six of 15, or 40 percent, of their save opportunities so far this season – only the Oakland Athletics at five of 13 have been worse – and already there’s much to lament.
Then factor in that Blue Jays pitchers have pitched to a .790 OPS in late and close situations – defined as plate appearances in the seventh inning or later with the batting team tied, ahead by one, or with the tying run at least on deck – and it’s easy to understand why they’re 3-10 in one-run games and 2-23 when they score less than five runs.
Late and Close Struggles
Source: Baseball-Reference.com
Late slim leads are far from safe, and when games are tied more often than not they’re going to get out-bullpened. To their good fortune, the rest of the AL East has been a garbage dump so far and they’re only two strong weeks from the division lead, but the margin for error keeps shrinking.
It won’t be early forever.
General manager Alex Anthopoulos can certainly help matters by adding a bullpen arm, and once the draft wraps up in about two weeks, teams will shift focus to the trade market.
While Jonathan Papelbon seems the obvious answer, that’s not happening unless the Philadelphia Phillies eat a substantial portion of his salary and settle for a lower-level prospect, non-starters thus far.
A more mid-range option like John Axford – eligible to be dealt by the Colorado Rockies without his consent once the veto period for free agents signed last winter passes June 15 – might make more sense in both acquisition cost and payroll allocation.
Anthopoulos will need to manage his bullets wisely.
Either way, the Blue Jays would build more depth into their bullpen, ease their dependence on Roberto Osuna and give manager John Gibbons more weapons to work with late in games. Anthopoulos can keep waiting for an internal option to emerge – Liam Hendriks and to a lesser extent Steve Delabar are getting opportunities right now – but even if one of them clicks, they’d still be better off with another arm, too.
They need more ways to get the ball to Brett Cecil with a lead in the ninth inning.
Collectively, the Blue Jays have pitched to an .812 OPS against in both high and medium leverage situations – spots when control of the game is most likely to swing from one team to the other.
High-Leverage Struggles
Source: Baseball-Reference.com
Osuna, all of 20, has been by far their most consistent reliever in those times, but he’s already pitched in 21 of the team’s 49 games, and caution is needed given his age and that he’s in his first full season after Tommy John surgery.
“I don’t know where we’d be without him,” manager John Gibbons said before Wednesday’s contest, adding later: “It’s very tempting to use him every day, but I don’t know how smart that would be.”
The right-hander surrendered the two decisive runs in the 10th inning of Wednesday’s 5-3 loss to the Chicago White Sox, and while no one is going to be perfect – they were just the third and fourth runs he’s allowed in 24.2 innings this season – the personal blip was an all too common occurrence for the Blue Jays.
In Tuesday’s 10-9 win over the White Sox, the bullpen blew two leads but was rescued by Josh Donaldson’s walk-off homer, while the Blue Jays coughed up seventh-inning leads on consecutive days at the beginning of the homestand leading to a pair of losses to the Los Angeles Angels.
Late and close and high leverage spots have gotten the best of the Blue Jays far too often.
“There’s more perceived pressure from that pitcher, so you try to get him to relax and do what they do,” said bullpen coach Dane Johnson. “Obviously they’ve been inserted in that role for a reason, because they have the stuff that can handle that role, so we just want them to go about their business in the same way.”
Easier said than done, obviously, and the Blue Jays would love for Hendriks or Delabar to step and up and become the complementary right-handed option for Osuna.
Delabar surrendered a two-run double in the seventh to pinch-hitter Marc Krauss that settled a 4-3 loss to the Angels on May 20, but delivered a clean 1.1 innings to earn the win Tuesday against the White Sox. The Blue Jays would still like to see more consistency in his fastball location.
Hendriks is more of a strike-thrower and has stranded eight of the 10 runners he’s inherited so far – Blue Jays relievers have stranded only 53 of 70, or 61 percent, of inherited runners overall, well off the league average of 68 – but has an OPS against of .792 in 22 late and close plate appearances, and a 1.077 OPS against in 13 high leverage plate appearances.
Those same sizes are small and his fastball velocity is averaging 94 mph since he converted to the bullpen during spring training, so there’s reason to think he can acclimate to the new role. But as Johnson says, “it’s a live and learn type of process.”
“The guys go back and check their tapes after those games, they understand what they could have done better in those situations, whether it’s a sequence, whether it’s an expansion on a certain pitch when we left something over the plate when we had a leverage count on a hitter, or just working ahead in general,” Johnson continued. “We have the guys with the stuff to do that, it’s just about putting those pitches together in those situations and those sequences.”
Hendriks has proven durable – he trails only Osuna, Aaron Loup (20) and Cecil (18) in games pitched at 17 and is second in innings at 21 – and he is very pleased with the way his arm recovers, feeling good enough to pitch two, even three days in a row.
The adjustment to the new role is coming.
“As a starter you put yourself in those high leverage situations and if it’s early in the game, it’s like, ‘OK, I need to get out of this so I can get deep in the game,’” he explained. “As a reliever, this is what you do, this is your situation, this is what you need to be good at, getting out of those high leverage situations. It’s a little different mindset, it’s a little more aggressive.”
The Blue Jays desperately need him, or someone, else to figure it out. Important roles are still there for the taking.
“I want to be one of those late inning guys, I want to be someone that Gibby can rely on, that’s the goal of anybody in the bullpen, they want to get into those high leverage situations and they want to succeed at them,” said Hendriks. “I’m hoping to continue to pitch well and do what Cecil did in his first year in the bullpen, he started as a multiple-inning guy, middle relief, and then moved his way to a one-inning, high-leverage situation guy.
“If you take a couple of outings out of what I’ve done this year, my entire stat line looks completely different. I know I’ve pitched better than the numbers I’ve been putting up.”
The Blue Jays as a group feel the same way about their play overall. Six games against the hot Minnesota Twins and enviable Washington Nationals starting Friday are a good time to starting proving that.