Bullpen Depth Charts: Relievers To Stream — 6/21

Welcome back to Relievers to Stream for Wins and Saves! This will bring you up-to-date bullpen depth charts every morning for the day’s games and makes for a great tool for those of you looking to stream saves or wins. This series runs seven days a week, so be sure to check in every morning to get your daily bullpen fix!

 

Notes

 

Schedule Notes

 

• The following teams have a scheduled off day today and aren’t candidates for streaming: BOS, NYY, TOR, TB, CWS, DET, KC, LAA, SEA, MIA, PHI, WAS, PIT, STL, COL, SFG.
• Baltimore and Houston do not have another scheduled off day in the month of June, while the Dodgers’ next off day isn’t until June 30th.
• The Mets and Braves will play a doubleheader and I’d expect each of them to make one of the two a bullpen game. With the usual long relief suspects of Robert Gsellman and Sean Reid-Foley on the Mets side and Josh Tomlin and Sean Newcomb on the Braves side all having worked within the past two days, both teams may be relying on a callup to work multiple innings here (Indeed, the Mets will go with Jared Eickhoff and the Braves will use Kyle Muller). I’d instead suggest targeting middle relievers Miguel Castro and A.J. Minter hoping that they get sent out before the starter can go five innings and qualify for the win.

 

Transactions/Injuries

 

• Sam Howard was placed on the 10-day IL by the Pirates with a right knee issue.
• Kevin Ginkel was demoted to AAA-Reno by the Diamondbacks.

 

Yesterday’s Performances

 

• The Mets used Jeurys Familia and Drew Smith in this game, neither of whom have much fantasy relevance. Their top bullpen arms should all be available heading into Monday’s game.
• Brad Hand picked up save number 15 with Tanner Rainey and Kyle Finnegan earning holds. It’s worth noting that Rainey’s fastball averaged 98.4 mph in this game compared to 95.9 on the year. He’s riding a six-inning scoreless streak, but has four walks and two hit batsmen in that stretch. Finnegan also appears to be the seventh-inning guy of choice in Washington with Daniel Hudson on the mend.

 

• The Indians switched it up a bit and gave James Karinchak his eighth save of the year and first since June 1st. Emmanuel Clase was used in the eighth inning and earned a hold. This is a platoon that has slightly favored Clase so far this year, but Karinchak has, on average, been used in higher leverage situations. Karinchak was working for the second day in a row and needed 23 pitches to get through his inning while Clase was working on three days rest and needed just nine pitches, so I’d imagine Clase would be the one to get the save chance if one presents itself on Monday.
• The Pirates were dealt a blow when they were forced to put Sam Howard on the IL with a knee injury. He had been one of the best relievers in the league before his six-run blowup on Friday. None of the relievers the Pirates used on Sunday should be rostered.

 

• Tyler Chatwood secured his first save of the year for the Blue Jays. Jordan Romano had been used for two innings the previous night (28 pitches) and was not available for this one. It’s good to see Chatwood lock this one down after going through such a rough stretch. He’s been far from dominant in his six appearance scoreless streak, however, and remains a risky play until he starts showing better peripheral numbers.
• Isn’t it strange how we were talking about César Valdez as a potential valuable trade piece at the end of April? An 11.57 May ERA and a 7.71 June ERA have killed that possibility.

 

• Sergio Romo and Cam Bedrosian did their best to keep the A’s in the game, but the offense wasn’t able to pull it out. While still sporting middling numbers on the year, the A’s bullpen has been the third best in the majors by ERA over the past month.
• Jonathan Loaisiga earned the win in relief, his seventh of the year, while Aroldis Chapman earned his 16th save. What a season Loaisiga is putting together so far as a long man out of the bullpen. He has two saves and nine holds to go along with his seven wins and excellent ratios. Interesting tidbit, Chapman somehow got through his inning despite throwing just two of his 11 pitches for strikes. After being absolutely dominant in April and May, Chapman has shown some kinks in the armor in June, although most of the damage came from one outing in Minnesota on June 10th.

 

• The Red Sox tried to keep the game close in the middle innings with Darwinzon Hernandez, but they were unable to and eventually threw out their depth arms. Nothing much to see here.
• The Royals brought in Kyle Zimmer in a medium leverage situation in the eighth which was enough to earn him a hold. Greg Holland was brought on for the ninth but didn’t earn the save as the Royals won by four. Zimmer has been absolutely outstanding this year after an equally outstanding 2020. He’s a decent candidate to start to get more save opportunities in the second half after the Royals, hopefully, stop messing around with Holland.

 

• The Cardinals and Braves played a pair of seven-inning games on Sunday. The Cardinals did not need their bullpen in game one and only called upon them for six outs in game two. After an off day Monday, expect the pen to be completely rested on Tuesday despite this doubleheader.
• The Braves needed a bit more from their bullpen and Will Smith earned his 13th save in the nightcap. The…. what’s the opposite of a silver lining? The prickly, thorny lining is that Smith’s fastball velocity was down nearly a tick again on his season average even though he was working on two days’ rest. It was his fourth straight outing with reduced velocity, so this is something to keep an eye on.

 

• Liam Hendriks was used in a low-leverage situation after not having worked since Tuesday. In fact, several top relievers hadn’t gotten work in a few days for Chicago as Houston pretty much dominated in this four-game sweep. Hendriks took the opportunity to work on his breaking stuff which he had been having trouble throwing for strikes and was effective.
• Blake Taylor is having a pretty nice June and has now allowed just one earned run with 11 strikeouts in eight June innings. He’s still only at two holds on the year, though, despite several injuries in the Houston bullpen, so he’s still building trust with Dusty Baker.

 

• Yimi García picked up his first work since Tuesday in a low leverage situation. He worked a clean, efficient inning. Anthony Bender delivered another inning and two-thirds of scoreless ball and has now delivered 19.1 innings without an earned run to start his career.
• Craig Kimbrel locked down save number 20 for the Cubs while Ryan Tepera and Andrew Chafin each earned holds. Kimbrel has yet to allow a hit in June.

 

• Hansel Robles notched his sixth save of the year for the Twins while Tyler Duffey and Jorge Alcala earned saves. Both Robles and Taylor Rogers had worked each of the previous two games, so this was a situation where the Twins didn’t want to use both of their top arms for three games in a row without the benefit of an off day on Monday. The odds fell to Robles this time, but this was his first save since June 5th while Rogers had gotten three saves in that interim. The advantage in the platoon still falls slightly towards Rogers.
• Don’t buy into Spencer Patton’s six scoreless innings with seven strikeouts in his first taste of the majors since 2016 fool you. A swinging strike rate just north of 10% and a middling fastball-slider combo will likely not lead to any long-term success.

 

• The Brewers had a chance to use Josh Hader for the third straight game again but opted to use Brad Boxberger in the ninth who earned his third save of the year. This wasn’t a pitch count thing as Hader had just needed 24 pitches total to get through the previous two nights. I imagine the Brewers are just limiting how often they use Hader three days in a row even though they haven’t made it completely off-limits.
• Daniel Bard had a bit of a rough week allowing runs in three of his five appearances. He blew a save Friday night and took the loss Sunday when he couldn’t keep the game tied in the top of the ninth. He seemed like he had turned a corner at this time last week, but he has allowed eight hits and struck out just two in his past five innings of work.

 

• The return of John Brebbia to the mound is an interesting story to follow from the Giants. He missed all of 2020 recovering from TJS, but he was pretty effective for the Cardinals before getting injured. If healthy, he could end up being an important piece of the Giants bullpen.
• Héctor Neris got in a game for the first time since Wednesday but worked only a third of an inning. With an off day Monday, the Phillies likely just saw an opportunity to keep him fresh that wouldn’t affect his availability for the next game.

 

• The Tigers bullpen delivered five scoreless innings culminating in a victory for José Cisnero and a save for Michael Fulmer, his sixth. Cisnero has been lights out in his past 15 appearances allowing just one earned run in 15.1 IP.
• Raisel Iglesias picked up the loss on Sunday after allowing two runners to score in the top of the tenth. The Angels offense was not able to solve the Tigers bullpen in this one and didn’t manage to stage a comeback. Iglesias was honestly pretty good in this one and just ran into some more bad luck. He was 8/39 on swinging strikes giving him a swinging strike rate of 20.5% on the day and the two hits against him had exit velocities of 58.6 and 71.8 mph respectively. Yes, I understand this makes four straight outings allowing an earned run against the Diamondbacks and Tigers, but Iglesias still deserves your trust.

 

• Kenley Jansen put away save number 18 of the year and number 330 of his career. His cutter velocity has been sitting around 93 mph for the past five outings, which is a full tick over his to-date season average and over two ticks better than last year. Jansen has had problems in the second half over the past few years (4.62 ERA in the combined second halves of 2018, 2019, and 2020), so the Dodgers have managed his workload a bit differently this year. It appears to be working and this could be a sign that Jansen is ready to put his second-half woes behind him.
• I’m so sorry, Diamondbacks.

 

• Heath Hembree is honestly not that bad despite his 5.64 ERA on the year. xERA and xFIP really think he has potential and love his 43% K-rate and 8% walk rate. However, he has allowed seven homers in 22.1 IP with a 16.3% barrel rate, so FIP hates him. Is he getting unlucky with all the barrels or is he just a feast or famine type of pitcher? Given that this lines up with his performance last year, I’m going to say the latter.
• After sharing it for just a few hours, Mark Melancon retook the outright MLB saves lead with his 21st of the year. I know the four-run blowup stings, but he’s rebounded in his last two outings and should continue to get as many save chances as anyone in baseball.

 

• Diego Castillo allowed a walk-off grand slam to Shed Long Jr. to get tagged with his fourth loss of the year. Castillo probably didn’t deserve this one. He didn’t help himself on the defensive end misplaying a bunt from Dylan Moore and just go back and look at the missed strike three call on the third pitch of the at-bat against Luis Torrens that would have absolutely changed the inning. I can definitely hear the argument that it’s hard to recover after a missed call that important and that bad.
• Rafael Montero earned the win, his fifth of the year, by working a scoreless ninth. He’s been far from dominant, but Kendall Graveman still doesn’t seem completely healthy in his return from the IL, so Montero likely still sees late inning chances for a bit longer. Drew Steckenrider has been performing really well lately and seems to be the seventh-inning guy of choice for the Mariners now.