Analyzing the Bullpen Troubles
“Phillies bullpen melts down again in loss to Braves”
“Phillies bullpen implodes in loss to Nationals”
Those are just a few of the recent news headlines about the current state of the Phillies bullpen. I’m sure I didn’t need to remind you of those headlines either. Every Phillies fan remembers the recent games where the starting pitchers threw gems and the releivers handed it over to the other team. It’s painful to think about and it was a big reason the team fell from 7-2 to 8-5 going into last night’s game.
It seems like the only way the Phillies can win is if Halladay is pitching or if the other starters turn over leads greater than 6 runs to the pen- and the Phillies won’t be winning any championships that way.
Madson, Herndon and Baez all have an era or 7.71 in a total of 18 appearances. Figueroa and Contreras has lower eras (2.45) but both have a loss already. The few bright spots in the bullpen are Durbin and Bastardo (I would even consider Figueroa a bright spot at this point) but that’s not enough to carry the team.
As a group, they have no confidence right now and the team and fans are losing confidence by the day. Halladay can’t pitch every night and Moyer is pitching tonight which means they will most likely need to put the game in the hands of the pen at some point.
It’s true that they will get a bit of a boost when Lidge and Romero return- but how much of a boost? It all comes down to the performance of Brad Lidge. I have confidence that Romero will be the reliable reliever he always is when he returns and we will rarely see him make mistakes. If Lidge plays like last year though, the Phillies will have to work hard to find another solution because it’s obvious that Madson isn’t a closer. Right now I will give Lidge the benefit of the doubt and assume he will come in looking sharp. But if not, the problems will only get worse.
