MLB Bullpen Red Flags
Bullpen Red Flags, PHI's Pen Is Running on Fumes
Published
Relief pitching is a budget, and some teams have been spending like the bill never comes. From the last three days of captured box scores, here is the relief workload around the league, starters excluded.
Heavy lifting
PHI top the board with six relief appearances in one games, about 6.0 arms out of the pen a night. A manager can live like that for a weekend; over a longer stretch, it is usually the late innings that pay the bill.
LAD have been nearly as busy: 6 appearances across 1 games.
TB (6 outings in 1 games) are not far off that pace either.
Fresh and waiting
CHC have barely touched the phone: one reliever outings over one games, leaving the whole late-inning menu available.
LAA are in similar shape, with just 1 relief outings across 1 games.
Put the two ends side by side and the gap is five relief appearances in an identical window, which is enormous in bullpen terms.
By the numbers
Every pen in the sample, most-taxed first:
| Team | Relief outings | Games |
|---|---|---|
| PHI | 6 | 1 |
| LAD | 6 | 1 |
| TB | 6 | 1 |
| TOR | 5 | 1 |
| SF | 4 | 1 |
One more thing
The tally counts appearances, not innings: each reliever who entered a captured game adds one to his team's total. Crude on purpose, and applied identically everywhere.
A taxed pen shows up late, not early: fewer trusted arms, longer leashes, fatter late innings. Watch the eighth.
The schedule cooperates, too, Philadelphia Phillies face St. Louis Cardinals next, so this story gets its next chapter almost immediately.