Bullpen Depth Charts: Relievers To Stream — 7/19

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 the day off today: NYY, KCR, SEA, PHI, MIL, COL.
• The Twins and White Sox will be playing a doubleheader with two seven-inning games.
• As far as potential win vulture opportunities, remember Casey Mize is still on an innings limit in Detroit and Jake Woodford is making his first spot start of the year for St. Louis. I wouldn’t expect either of them to go five, so middle relievers on both teams have a bit of added value. I might consider Andrew Miller for the Cardinals.

 

Transaction and Injury Notes

 

• Demarcus Evans was called back up to Texas.
• Sam Coonrod started a rehab assignment for Philadelphia.
• Tyler Chatwood started a rehab assignment for Toronto.

 

Yesterday’s Performances

 

• With Edwin Díaz having blown up on Saturday, the Mets turned to Trevor May for his second save of the season on Sunday. Jeurys Familia also picked up his fifth win in relief. Díaz only threw 24 pitches on Saturday, so it’s not like he was 100% unavailable for this one. But, with the combination of the long break and rough outing last time up, the Mets saw fit to give their closer a day of rest. I wouldn’t expect this to be a long-term shift yet despite Díaz’s recent struggles.
• Richard Rodríguez blew his third save of the year allowing two runs on two hits and taking the loss. He hasn’t been quite as dominant in July as he was for the first few months of the year while David Bednar has yet to be scored upon in seven July innings including one Sunday that earned him his eighth hold. Look for Bednar to be the Pirates closer by August.

 

• Both Emilio Pagán and Mark Melancon got their first day of work since the All-Star break and both showed some rust. Pagán got tagged with his third blown save and Melancon with his second loss. Melancon has a better chance of losing his job to a blockbuster trade than his performance at this point, so keep rolling with him.
• Brad Hand made his first appearance since July 5th and looked appropriately rusty trudging through three walks and 31 total pitches on his way to his third blown save and a lucky fifth win. The Padres were content to not take the bat off their shoulders upon seeing how wild Hand was which led to batters swinging at only six of Hand’s 31 pitches and an inflated number of called strikes (10). He was lucky to escape with only one run surrendered.

 

• The Marlins quickly squandered the suspended game as Yimi García allowed the game-winning home run on his second batter faced and after just five pitches. After a dominant April and May, García struggled in June and is continuing to struggle in July. Will the Marlins just bite the bullet and keep him if his trade value goes too low? In the full game, Anthony Bender gave up a pair of runs and took the loss. He’s now allowed runs in four out of his past five appearances.
• The Phillies used José Alvarado in their lone inning of the suspended game and he earned his sixth win of the year for his work. In the full game, Héctor Neris was called upon in the ninth despite having gone two innings the night before and nabbed his 12th save. Neris is quietly on a six-inning scoreless streak since his infamous six-run firework show on July 4th.

 

• Demarcus Evans is back with the big league club and delivered two scoreless innings in the second game of the doubleheader. He wasn’t exactly dominant with a CSW of only 19%, but he generated weak contact against an extremely good offense.
• Toronto barely needed their bullpen as their starters combined for twelve scoreless innings across the two games. It was interesting that we saw Rafael Dolis here on mop-up duty. With his recent performance and Tyler Chatwood on his way back, his days in high-leverage innings may be numbered.

 

• The Twins decided to let their starter J.A. Happ go 100 pitches no matter what, so they only needed three outs from their bullpen in what was a seven-run ball game at the time. Nothing to see here except the Twins rolling over and getting swept by the Tigers.
• By the time the Tigers got to the bullpen, they were up seven runs, so those guys were mainly on mop-up duty.

 

• Milwaukee starter Corbin Burnes nearly went the distance (in a nine-inning game no less!), so they only needed a few mop-up outs from Angel Perdomo.
• Despite giving up a couple of runs, Tony Santillan gave some more encouragement to the Reds bullpen as he generated seven swinging strikes from his 23 total pitches. His swinging strike rate on the year is impressive, so he may be able to find success as a long reliever. However, it was the ninth inning of a game that was in hand, so guys may have just been free-swinging.

 

• The Rays turned to Pete Fairbanks for his fifth save of the season. It was his second save of the series, so perhaps Tampa Bay just likes something about the matchup between Fairbanks and the Braves lineup. It’s also possible the Rays are trying to limit Diego Castillo’s workload. Collin McHugh also continued his excellent season delivering two innings with just one unearned run earning his fourth hold.
• It’s been a rough season for Atlanta’s A.J. Minter and he was saddled with his sixth blown save and fourth loss of the season Sunday after retiring just one of the three batters he faced. He’s not likely to progress beyond the role of handling three-batter stretches with two to three lefties.

 

• The back of Baltimore’s bullpen remains a mystery as they were able to tack on enough insurance runs to avoid a save situation. Cole Sulser worked the eighth and Dillon Tate worked the ninth in this one, but we have no reason to call this anything but an ugly, multi-headed committee.
• The Royals tipped their hand in terms of their current bullpen construction more in who they didn’t use. Scott Barlow was about the only important Royals reliever not used on Sunday which continues to affirm his status as the top reliever in Kansas City.

 

• There wasn’t much work for the Astros bullpen and they were down four runs by the time they even got in.
• Liam Hendriks got in his first inning since the All-Star break and was dominant striking out two in a ten-pitch perfect inning. Do you need me to tell you what to do with him?

 

• John Brebbia took his first loss of the year allowing a run in his inning of work. He has the potential to hold a really important spot in the Giants bullpen which is a team that has the potential to get a lot of holds, however he’s still working back from the Tommy John surgery he underwent just over a year ago.
• He can’t keep getting away with it, right? Alex Reyes walked two, but delivered the save, his 22nd of the year. A lot of his success comes from his ability to avoid the long ball. His 5.4% HR/FB ratio would be comically low for most, but it appears to be par for the course for Reyes. In his 115 major league innings, he’s allowed just five homers on a 4.5% HR/FB ratio. Cardinal relievers as a whole follow Reyes’ lead and have the highest walk rate in baseball (13.5%) by quite a wide margin paired with the second-lowest HR/FB rate. Personally, I’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop with Reyes all year. We’ve never seen a closer have consistent success (to my knowledge) with a walk rate like he has. But maybe it’s time to consider that this is just a skill that either he or the Cardinals organization has.

 

• The Dodgers’ bullpen struggled on Sunday and saw blown saves from both Kenley Jansen and Phil Bickford. It was Jansen’s third blown save of the year, but first since May 5th, so there’s really nothing to worry about. Afternoon baseball in Coors can be weird.
• Mychal Givens allowed a run for his third appearance in a row, but earned his third win of the year as the offense picked him up in the bottom of the tenth. Daniel Bard doesn’t get to factor into the win-loss record book, but played an important role in the victory for Colorado as he delivered a 1-2-3 ninth which allowed Colorado to tie the game in the bottom of the frame.

 

• After a couple of games of heavy workload for the back of their bullpen, Cleveland turned to Nick Wittgren, Phil Maton, and Bryan Shaw for the final three innings of their matchup against Oakland. Wittgren and Maton walked away with holds while Shaw earned his second save. This was strictly workload-related and not a signal of any changing of the guard.
• Oakland used a couple of their top guys to try to keep the game close, but the offense was unable to muster a rally. Yusmeiro Petit is quietly putting up an extremely good season with seven wins and two saves on a 3.10 ERA in 49.1 IPs, the heaviest workload amongst American League relievers.

 

• Paul Sewald allowed his first earned runs since June 1st, a streak that spanned 17 innings. Sewald still managed to strike out the side and earn six swinging strikes on his 25 pitches, so he’s still very much in the running to close if the Mariners move Kendall Graveman.
• The Angels didn’t need much from their bullpen as their starter went seven innings and left them with a four-run deficit.

 

• The struggles for Dan Winkler continue as he allowed two more earned runs bringing his July total up to six. Winkler was so dominant to begin the year and allowed just four runs in his first 29.1 IPs and has since allowed six in his last two and a third.
• Joakim Soria was the only bullpen arm Arizona needed on Sunday and he converted his fourth save of the year. He’s definitely Arizona’s closer for now, but he could certainly be gone if any team is willing to give up anything of value for him.

 

• The Red Sox fell behind and didn’t use any of their top relievers.
• Despite the eight-run gap, we saw some pretty important bullpen work from the Yankees. Zack Britton returned from the IL and threw 26 pitches (that’s the good news), but recorded only two outs and had diminished velocity (that’s the bad news). We also saw a maintenance inning for Aroldis Chapman where he looked fine. I say roll with him next week.