{"id":14207,"date":"2017-06-30T10:33:09","date_gmt":"2017-06-30T14:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=14207"},"modified":"2017-06-30T10:38:00","modified_gmt":"2017-06-30T14:38:00","slug":"is-this-the-turning-point-for-the-bullpen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=14207","title":{"rendered":"Is this the turning point for the bullpen?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Is<\/a>

Is Treinen in danger of a DFA or a demotion? Photo via zimbio.com<\/p><\/div>\n

Yes, its one game. \u00a0Yes, 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.<\/p>\n

But, at the same time, last night’s debilitating 6-5 loss<\/a>, featuring a 3-run ninth from\u00a0your opening-day closer\u00a0Blake Treinen\u00a0<\/strong>seemed different. \u00a0Why? \u00a0Because 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. \u00a0Because 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. \u00a0The team s hould be walking away with a dominant series win, having outscored the defending WS champs 22-12. \u00a0Instead they concede a split series that ended with a ton of frustration.<\/p>\n

The loss last night (per Byron Kerr<\/strong>‘s twitter status<\/a>)\u00a0now represents the SIXTH time in 79 games this year that the bullpen has blown a 9th inning lead. \u00a0 That’s only slightly worse (92.5% conversion rate) than historically \u00a0is to be expected (about 95% per\u00a0Joe Posnanski<\/strong> research), but in the era of the closer … you’d expect better results.<\/p>\n

The hitters are already grumbling. \u00a0As noted in this weeks’\u00a0Tom Boswell<\/strong> chat (and subsequently picked up by\u00a0Craig Calcaterra<\/strong> in Hardball\/NBCSports blog), players are getting pretty frustrated that they are beating teams for 8 innings only to lose it in the 9th. \u00a0And 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\u00a0Jon Lester<\/strong> himself), then you HAVE TO WIN that game. \u00a0You 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. \u00a0Hell, they even got a quality start plus from\u00a0Joe Ross<\/strong>! \u00a0You can’t waste those! \u00a0Normally Ross needs the offense to score him 12 runs to win.<\/p>\n

I saw the result last night and the first thing I thought was, ”\u00a0I wonder if they’ll DFA Treinen.” \u00a0 This is the same team that layered Drew Storen<\/strong> after high profile post-season meltdowns; was\u00a0Ted Lerner<\/strong> in the crowd last night? \u00a0What value does Trienen give the team right now? \u00a0 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. \u00a0I’m sure it won’t actually happen, thanks to the general health meltdown out there and the clear lack of options on the farm. \u00a0But at some point, you have to think out side the box.<\/p>\n

They were thinking outside the box moving\u00a0Erick Fedde<\/strong> to the pen; guess what? \u00a0Its time. \u00a0I’d also start thinking about other AAA starters out of the pen while the two closer-retreads they’ve just signed (Francisco Rodriguez<\/strong> and\u00a0Kevin Jepsen<\/strong> get fitted for uniforms and throw a few innings in AAA). \u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

I’ve preached patience for this bullpen, and I just ran out of it.<\/p>\n

ps: the larger news on the night of course is the\u00a0Trea Turner<\/strong> injury. \u00a0That’s a bad piece of luck … but its also why we got back\u00a0Stephen Drew<\/strong>. \u00a0My 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. \u00a0 He’ll be back for September when it counts. \u00a0Fix the bullpen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yes, its one game. \u00a0Yes, 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\u00a0your opening-day closer\u00a0Blake Treinen\u00a0seemed different. \u00a0Why? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[1693,265,454,52,2425,810,396,2691,221,3666,1014,366,125,2426],"class_list":["post-14207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlbpitching","category-natsgeneral","tag-blake-treinen","tag-byron-kerr","tag-craig-calcaterra","tag-drew-storen","tag-erick-fedde","tag-francisco-rodriguez","tag-joe-posnanski","tag-joe-ross","tag-jon-lester","tag-kevin-jepsen","tag-stephen-drew","tag-ted-lerner","tag-tom-boswell","tag-trea-turner"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14207"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14213,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14207\/revisions\/14213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}