O'Day and the Bullpen

[Aristotelian]

Interesting that we haven't seen O'Day yet in the TOR series. He has only had 3 appearances since coming off the DL and hasn't been exactly lights out. With the off day earlier this week, he could have pitched in lower leverage on Tuesday with the O's down, but he went with Tommy and Drake. If Buck was looking to put him back in high leverage spots, he had an opportunity last night and elected to go with Givens.

With only 4 games left, Buck is going to have extremely limited opportunity to see what O'Day can do and settle him into a role. Meanwhile, Givens is still a rookie, and Brach has been shaky. What do you see as the current bullpen hierarchy?

To me it is something like:

RHB: Britton, Givens, Brach, O'Day, Drake, Hunter, Worley, Wilson

LHB: Britton, Hart, Duensing, Brach, Worley, Wilson

...but this is based purely on gut feeling. O'Day is the key but I have no idea what he is capable of right now.

[backwardsk]

How many times has O'Day pitched when the team has trailed?

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[Aristotelian]

How many times has O'Day pitched when the team has trailed?

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His last appearances were down 2 in the 9th vs the Red Sox and down 2 in the 7th vs AZ. His first appearance was a tie game 0-0 in the 4th in relief of Miley who had to leave with an injury. Gave up a HR on the first pitch I believe possibly due to not warming up.

[Frobby]

I think right now O'Day is our 4th option, behind Britton, Brach and Givens. But Buck is also likely to do a lot of matching up against LHB, since he has the bodies to do it, so we may not see much of O'Day.

[Aristotelian]

Last night might have been an opportunity to bring in O'Day with a 4 run cushion but Buck went to Brach. Brach got the job done, no complaints there, but I am still worried about this bullpen (other than Britton at the back end, of course). I guess we must be resigned to the fact that we are not going to have 2015 O'Day.

[canonfaz]

I think it's pretty obvious by his usage that O'Day is not 100%. It will be interesting to see if he'll be healthy enough to include him in the postseason roster (man, I hope there is a postseason roster!).

[sportsfan8703]

I like that Buck didn't throw O'day to the wolves in this series. We still took 2/3. O'day has given up some big runs to TOR in recent memory. Keep his confidence high and let him get into 1-2 games vs the Yankees. O'day will be a weapon. We just have to let him build his confidence.

I think we'll see the remaining games managed like playoff games. So if one of these starters doesn't have it we will be going to the pen ASAP. Remember O'day came in for Gallardo in the 4th inning his last start. Hope that doesn't happen. But say we have a lead, Gallardo is at 75 pitches, I could see O'day coming into a game to get the last out of the 5th.

[CallMeBrooksie]

Incredible how deep this bullpen is on the back end that we can protect O'Day while he's getting healthy and not miss a beat with Givens and Brach. Our rivals would all kill to have our bullpen.

[fansince71]

Incredible how deep this bullpen is on the back end that we can protect O'Day while he's getting healthy and not miss a beat with Givens and Brach. Our rivals would all kill to have our bullpen.

True, solid as a rock. Our offense needs to get hot for October.

[Aristotelian]

True, solid as a rock. Our offense needs to get hot for October.

I guess I don't see it that way. That's the thing. I still don't feel 100% confident with Givens or Brach the way I did with the 2014-15 version of O'Day (esp. when paired with Miller). If we had O'Day we could really start matching up early and shorten the game.

[jtschrei]

The bullpen is the least of our problems. It's the bats and the batting approach that have me worried. You can break out of it anytime Chris Davis!! We need some taters into that short porch in NY!!