Being an Arizona Diamondbacks fan living in Central New York may be one of the tougher acts to follow. There has yet to be one of their games on TV yet and not much hope in sight for getting one anytime soon. I will get to watch the series against the Yankees, 2 games on YES 1 on ESPN, and the home and home series against the Mets on FSN. Most of my analysis therefore is coming from stats, which I realize is not always the most efficient way to look at things since there are other factors.
My look today is at the absolutely brutal bullpen that has blown the save on 7 different occasions this year not to mention a few less than acceptable performances. For example when Ian Kennedys last start, a 7 inning performance against Milwaukee where he gave up 2 runs then left trailing 2-1. Then the bullpen took over and gave up 4 more runs the next inning, essentially taking the team out of the game. I was going to wait for the next blown save to write this but decided that writing it on a day when I wasn’t all worked up about it was probably a good idea. The first thing I should establish is that by no means has the starting rotation been spectacular so far. Brandon Webb has yet to make a start this year and still has no timeline to return, Dan Haren has been average, picking up wins but not being the Cy Young candidate that he was last year. The pitching staff has given up the second most runs, the most home runs, and has compiled a team ERA that is better than only the Pittsburgh Pirates. Mediocre is the best way to describe the rest of the key pitching stats, where they fall somewhere in the middle for hits, walks and strikeouts. The key is though that an offence that struggled last year has been putting the team in a position to get wins. 14 times pitchers have come into the game with the chance to record a save, another time Haren went the distance to pick up the win.
I’ve started with a breakdown and tried to figure out where the problem coming from, especially the difference between the starters and relievers. The bullpen has pitched about half as many innings as the starters as a result of the starting pitchers averaging 6 innings game. The amount of just about every negative stat for the bullpen when adjusted for the number of innings is higher than for the starters. The hits and strikeouts come out about even but that just doesn’t balance with the 50 more runs (48 of them earned), 11 more home runs and 49 more walks. This is especially worrisome when your closer pitches 11 and 2/3 giving up 19 hits at 13 runs while blowing 2 saves. Not that he is the only one, 4 other pitchers have blown saves and the overall bullpen ERA is 7.13, more then 2 runs higher than the rather mediocre starters ERA. Too many home runs seems to be the major problem, allowing teams to score to many runs with just one swing of the back. Hopefully the starters and the bullpen can figure out how to cut back on that and Qualls can settle in a little bit as he has seemed to his last couple appearances. Only time will tell, but be sure to check back in next week as blog post should become more common as school comes to a close.
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