Bullpen Of Arizona Diamondbacks Off To Great Start
While the rotation of the Arizona Diamondbacks hasn’t been very good very early on this season, the bullpen certainly has been.
In fact, it has been so good, the D’Backs bullpen has only given up a total of two runs in the first four games of the young season. Those two runs were charged to Evan Marshall in the ninth inning during Wednesday’s loss to the San Francisco Giants.
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Considering how poor the starting pitching has been, it’s even that more impressive how good the Diamondbacks ‘pen has been thus far.
Through three games against the Giants and last night’s contest against the Dodgers, not a single starting pitcher has made it through the sixth inning. Everyone knew heading into this season that the starting rotation was a huge question mark, but that’s just awful.
In turn, that means the bullpen has had to log a ton of pitches and innings. Arizona’s bullpen has had to throw 17.2 innings in the first four games, which is fifth most in all of baseball behind the Yankees, Red Sox, Rangers and Padres. The Yanks and Sox are first and second respectively thanks to their 19-inning affair on Friday night.
Where do the D’Backs rank in terms of bullpen ERA you might ask? They are once again fifth best in all of baseball with a 1.02 ERA, behind the likes of the Royals, Braves, Angels and Nationals.
Taking away Marshall’s poor outing on Wednesday and every single member of the ‘pen has pitched well. Andrew Chafin has been by far and away the biggest surprise having thrown 5 1/3 scoreless innings so far.
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Now it’s true that we are only four games into a 162-game season, so you can take these numbers with a grain of salt. A lot can change behind now and even a few weeks down the line, but it’s great to see this bullpen get off to a good start, a unit which really struggled in 2014.
A big key for this bullpen going forward though is for this rotation to pitch better and go deeper games. If things remain the same, the bullpen is going to be shot from the number of innings they have thrown within a few months.
If the starters do continue to struggle over the coming weeks ahead, manager Chip Hale is going to have to make changes. Chafin and Daniel Hudson, who has had impressive velocity in his two outings so far, would be the first two to move from the bullpen into the rotation.
Ideally, it won’t have to come to that and everyone in the bullpen can keep their roles which has made this unit so successful early on this season.