Is Treinen in danger of a DFA or a demotion? Photo via zimbio.com
Yes, its one game. Yes, it was one game in a regular season 162 games long, with a team playing in an abhorrent division that they’ll probably win by 20 games irrespective of what happens.
But, at the same time, last night’s debilitating 6-5 loss, featuring a 3-run ninth from your opening-day closer Blake Treinen seemed different. Why? Because it blew a game against a playoff contender, a team that the Nats very well may face in the first round of the playoffs if the season plays out as expected. Because this wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill regular season game; this was one of those statement series that this team faces where it can measure up against last year’s champion and determine where they stand in the NL pecking order. The team s hould be walking away with a dominant series win, having outscored the defending WS champs 22-12. Instead they concede a split series that ended with a ton of frustration.
The loss last night (per Byron Kerr‘s twitter status) now represents the SIXTH time in 79 games this year that the bullpen has blown a 9th inning lead. That’s only slightly worse (92.5% conversion rate) than historically is to be expected (about 95% per Joe Posnanski research), but in the era of the closer … you’d expect better results.
The hitters are already grumbling. As noted in this weeks’ Tom Boswell chat (and subsequently picked up by Craig Calcaterra in Hardball/NBCSports blog), players are getting pretty frustrated that they are beating teams for 8 innings only to lose it in the 9th. And with good reason; if you’re facing a Cy Young quality pitcher and are in a position to beat him (well, beat his team that day, even if you couldn’t do jack with Jon Lester himself), then you HAVE TO WIN that game. You can’t have your starters going 120 pitches and trying to pitch complete games every night because you can’t trust a single member of your bullpen. Hell, they even got a quality start plus from Joe Ross! You can’t waste those! Normally Ross needs the offense to score him 12 runs to win.
I saw the result last night and the first thing I thought was, ” I wonder if they’ll DFA Treinen.” This is the same team that layered Drew Storen after high profile post-season meltdowns; was Ted Lerner in the crowd last night? What value does Trienen give the team right now? He’s got a 1.7whip, an ERA north of 6, and clearly can’t be trusted with the ball unless its a low-leverage situation. I’m sure it won’t actually happen, thanks to the general health meltdown out there and the clear lack of options on the farm. But at some point, you have to think out side the box.
They were thinking outside the box moving Erick Fedde to the pen; guess what? Its time. I’d also start thinking about other AAA starters out of the pen while the two closer-retreads they’ve just signed (Francisco Rodriguez and Kevin Jepsen get fitted for uniforms and throw a few innings in AAA). Call up guys from AA straight and DFA the deadweight that you know you don’t trust that’s sitting in AAA . You hate trading from a position of weakness, but its time to start working the phones and cashing in assets.
I’ve preached patience for this bullpen, and I just ran out of it.
ps: the larger news on the night of course is the Trea Turner injury. That’s a bad piece of luck … but its also why we got back Stephen Drew. My initial thoughts on Turner’s hit are these: its not season ending, we have a 9.5 game lead in a division were nobody else is really even trying, we’ll be fine. He’ll be back for September when it counts. Fix the bullpen.