Monday, April 22, 2013

In Praise of the Pirates Bullpen Construction

General Manager Neal Huntington has always been skilled at one thing: putting together a bullpen. Usually, that means picking free agents up off of the scrap heap and squeezing every last ounce of talent out of them. This year, he took a different approach. He re-signed Jason Grilli, traded incumbent closer Joel Hanrahan in a deal that brought back former closer Mark Melancon and acquired some long-men in Jeanmar Gomez and Vin Mazzaro, who also double as rotation depth.

So far, so good. No, really good. Pirates relievers are second in majors with a 1.89 ERA. This is particularly impressive as they've had to pitch a lot of innings to pick up the Pirates starters, who currently rank 11th in the NL in ERA. Grilli is 7-for-7 in save opportunities. Melancon has given up only 1 run in 11 innings with no walks and 10 strikeouts working as the eighth-inning set-up man. The back end of the bullpen looks just like Huntington hoped when he dreamed it up. But, it takes more than two relievers to fill out a bullpen.

For the first time in his tenure as manager, Clint Hurdle has two reliable lefties at his disposal out of the pen. Rookie Justin Wilson joins Tony Watson to create dream match-ups for their skipper. Neither is a LOOGY, though. Both of these guys can go multiple innings if need-be and can get both righties and lefties out.

The true brilliance of Huntington's plan, though, comes in the form of the easily-forgotten long men: Gomez and Mazzaro. Remember that starting pitcher ERA problem? After A.J. Burnett and Wandy Rodriguez, the starting pitching has been a mess. James McDonald, Jeff Locke and Jonathan Sanchez have been hit-or-miss...mostly miss. This has led to some awfully short outings out of the rotation.

That's where Gomez and Mazzaro come in. Having two reliable long-men in the pen (guys who can have a lot of success going once through the opposing team's lineup) is a huge asset to this club. It allows Hurdle to have an early hook with his starters and prevents games from getting out of hand early. In Sunday's victory over the Braves, for example, starter Jonathan Sanchez managed to slog through three ugly innings. He gave up two runs on four hits and three walks, somehow lowering his ERA to 11.12. Out came the hook and in came Gomez, who pitched 2.1 scoreless innings. He was followed by Wilson, Hughes and Watson, whose scoreless work set up Grilli's seventh save in as many opportunities.

This is a recipe for success. Obviously, the starters need to start pulling their weight or the pen will get overworked (indeed Melancon has already been pitching more innings than you'd like to see). Still, the bullpen construction continues to be a strength for the Huntington-led Pirates and this one may be his best yet. The next time Hurdle makes a call down to the "Shark Tank" (as they lovingly call themselves), you can bet they'll be up to the challenge.

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