Fabulous bullpen faltering

[WVRedsFan]

Over the last five games, the bully has done the following:

IP H R ER BB SO
13 14 14 13 6 11

That makes the ERA a perfect 9.00. To be fair, if you take Coffey and Cormier out of the mix, the figures look like this:

IP H R ER BB SO
11 10 6 6 5 8

That's an ERA of 4.91. Ugh. Probably about what we've experienced over the last few years.

What happened? Misused by the manager? Poor choices by Pole and Narron on who to bring in?

BTW, Coffee's ERA since Monday is a sweet 21.33. Time to sit him until we have a huge lead.

[Johnny Footstool]

In two weeks, the ERA will be down again. Then there will be another big blowup.

Ebb and flow.

[BCubb2003]

A brief sad history of meltdowns:

Even in the recent past, when the bullpen was at its best with Graves, White, Williamson and Sullivan, it never had that 30-straight saves guy. It could go for a week without giving up a run, and everybody would start talking about what a great bullpen it was, but by the end of the week there'd be a meltdown. Then another scoreless streak would start.

Then it got to the point that in every game, one of the relievers would melt down, another would come in and bail out, and the offense would sometimes come back.

Then it got to the point last season (about the time of the trade) that every reliever would come in and melt down. It was amazing. Nobody could get through an inning without giving up a run. It's been a long struggle to climb up from that point.

[UK Reds Fan]

If it was consistent among all of our BP options like it was last year around all star break, I'd be inclined to agree. But the vast majority of those numbers are Coffey's. Then you throw in Cormier's line tonight and that is about it as you pointed out.

We still have strong options at this point that aren't faltering very much compared to the average BP pitcher. Stanton is still perfect on season. Weathers very solid each outing. Cout gave us great performance this week. Santos outside of 1 outing very solid. Sarloos has maybe been most impressive out of pen of anyone.

So outside of just staying away from Coffey and Cormier is a waste as would be expected, we have options from both lefties and righties. Plus, we have Maj and Bray waiting in the wings at AAA that provide reasonable hope of improving over Coffey and Cormier's performance. Coffey may have options left to go to AAA to get it back together and Cormier can be DFA'd at any time. I am not too concerned over the pen like I was last year at All Star break. Everybody we thru out there for nearly 3 weeks was pounded terribly.

[Ltlabner]

That's an ERA of 4.91. Ugh. Probably about what we've experienced over the last few years.

What happened? Misused by the manager? Poor choices by Pole and Narron on who to bring in?

BTW, Coffee's ERA since Monday is a sweet 21.33. Time to sit him until we have a huge lead.

I think, as Johnny Footstool mentioned, this is the normal ebb and flow of what we'll see from the bullpen. It went from absoutly horrable to mostly adequate which is a huge improvement, but still leaves us stuck at mostly adequate. It only follows that you'll have some good nights, bad nights (either overall or from an individual pitcher). I don't think it's anything more mysterious than that.

I would like to see Dick Pole making trips to the mound before an inning unravels completley. I've not seen many games since the 1st week, but I don't recall Dick making much effort to go out and talk to a pitcher who obviously is struggling before disaster ensues.

At this point, I don't think it's a good idea to bring Coffey in 3 days in a row. Narron does have a habit of riding the same horses too much. I had hoped Pole would be able to put a stop to that.

[jojo]

What happened? Misused by the manager? Poor choices by Pole and Narron on who to bring in?

Narron isn't to blame for everything that goes wrong in the world...

The reality....you've got a decidely vanilla bullpen the largely pitches to contact and has it's best K arm disabled. When the balls are hit at people, they'll look great. when the balls aren't hit at people, fans will blame Narron. Bottom line, there's a little too much left to chance for this pen to be a strength for the Reds.


Basically, pardon the pun, but given his GB% and the fact that he has good control and the highest K/9 of the uninjured pen arms, Coffey is the cream of the Reds bullpen crop right now.

[bucksfan2]

Narron isn't to blame for everything that goes wrong in the world...

The reality....you've got a decidely vanilla bullpen the largely pitches to contact and has it's best K arm disabled. When the balls are hit at people, they'll look great. when the balls aren't hit at people, fans will blame Narron. Bottom line, there's a little too much left to chance for this pen to be a strength for the Reds.


Basically, pardon the pun, but given his GB% and the fact that he has good control and the highest K/9 of the uninjured pen arms, Coffey is the cream of the Reds bullpen crop right now.

Coffey has been ineffective in his most recent close games. WHY do you run him out again in that situation again? Look at the astro's lineup. You have 2 good hitters (Lee and Berkman) an average one in Lamb and the rest are garbage. Last nigth Coffey hits the lead off guy which basically enables Houston to get the meat of their lineup up to face him in the 8th. On paper Coffey may look like your best optoin but in reality I hope he has options to get his game figured out in Louisville.

[edabbs44]

Bottom line...overall, the bullpen isn't good. It's not just Coffey and Cormier. In a week or 2, those guys will be throwing well and Stanton and Santos (the relievers du jour) will be the new whipping boys.

The bullpen is not much better than the mess that was thrown together for 2006. The only major difference is that this one costs more.

[WVRedsFan]

Coffey has been ineffective in his most recent close games. WHY do you run him out again in that situation again? Look at the astro's lineup. You have 2 good hitters (Lee and Berkman) an average one in Lamb and the rest are garbage. Last nigth Coffey hits the lead off guy which basically enables Houston to get the meat of their lineup up to face him in the 8th. On paper Coffey may look like your best optoin but in reality I hope he has options to get his game figured out in Louisville.

Of course, jojo is correct. The players failed to do their jobs, but it is the manager's job to make these decisions, and as it turn out, it was a bad one.. Unfortunately, this team cannot afford to continue to score 4 runs or less in a game. We just do not have the lights out bullpen to do this an win. Of course, if you take Coffey and Cormier out of the equation, and things look a lot brighter on that end, but to score two runs on the nemesis of the las few years, only scoringon the HR is ot going to get that part of the game done.

Ltlabner said it best. Pitching Coffey three days in a row mystifies me, and points out the main question which is why would you put guys into that situation when their history shows that failure is a distinct possibility? Especially with the better or at least possible better options that come with as many pitchers as we have. Johnny says it will be ebb and flow and he's probably correct, which doesn't make me feel much better about the bulpen.

[BRM]

I don't know that I'd call the bullpen "mostly adequate". Unless "mostly adequate" essentially means a little below average to possibly average.

I agree with jojo. The bullpen is pretty vanilla. Full of mostly soft-tossing pitch to contact guys. There aren't many different looks coming out of the pen right now.

[HokieRed]

No point in having Coffey on the club if you're not going to work him regularly. Same with Cormier. Coffey needs work; he should get it in AAA as either Majewski or Salmon comes to Cincinnati. It's very close to the point where somebody is going to have to decide to give Cormier his release. Anybody have any information on Bray's progress or possible date of return?

[UK Reds Fan]

The point worth pondering isn't why Coffey got shelled/sucked...

It is why send Coffey out there 3 days in a row, when Sarloos is waiting to go and not to mention Stanton/Cout from left side. Also, most managers don't do this, but Weathers can pitch an inning besides just the 9th.

I could live with it a bit more if it was last year and you had Hammonds/White/Burns as your options, but we have more options to this point that appear to be decent.

[Falls City Beer]

In two weeks, the ERA will be down again. Then there will be another big blowup.

Ebb and flow.

Well, yes, that's the course of everything. But don't kid yourself, this is a crummy bullpen; it will likely stay down more than up, unless substantive changes are made.

[BRM]

Well, yes, that's the course of everything. But don't kid yourself, this is a crummy bullpen; it will likely stay down more than up, unless substantive changes are made.

A lot of time and effort was spent building this bullpen too. Maybe it needs a little more.

[flyer85]

What happened? Misused by the manager? Poor choices by Pole and Narron on who to bring in?

the simple answer is that the talent level is lacking and they just aren't very good as a group.