The Achilles heel for this team is the bullpen

[Fiver6565]

2 hours ago, sportsfan8703 said:

It’s the 7th inning with Burnes or Eflin on the bump. A tough lefty is coming up. Who you bringing in?  Perez or Coloumbe?  

If there's two outs and its not Judge in the hole, I'm probably going with Perez, crossing my fingers he gets the lefty, and then starting fresh the next inning with Coulombe or someone else.  If there's one out, I'm going w/ Coulombe.

[Fiver6565]

39 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

Soto has been fine since his first couple appearances and appears to be picking up steam. That makes seven. Problem is Cano has been the most reliable and all of a sudden looked terrible twice in a row. Hopefully he can get in one decent appearance in the final series.

The usage of Cano last night was poor, I don't even blame him really.  Yankees had 9-1-2 coming up, and Torres is well known (based on the telecast) to hit Cano well, and hit sinkers well.  He laced that hit to RF off him on Tuesday where the Yanks screwed up the baserunning.  And Soto got a hit off him that same inning.  So it was pretty predictable that these guys were going to tee off when he came in, and that's exactly what happened.

Not to mention he's pitched a lot recently, and Burnes should have pitched another inning anyway.  Just baffling decisions by Hyde last night, and I'm not one to generally question those types of things.  Even if the Burnes thing was pre-ordained, the choice of Cano for that moment was terrible.

[Too Tall]

It's game 160 tonight and we just discovered our bull pen has warts? Elias's fault, Hyde's fault - we've had ample threads of he sucks, they suck, fire him, demote him, etc.  Well we are off to the playoffs and the pen may be the reason we don't go far. And if so I doubt few on here will be surprised. It is what it is going forward with some but not necessarily significant adjustments. We play this year out with the hand we can put together - next Monday. Till then, just win one in Minnasota for the bottom line. Last night is over and IMO really didn't teach us anything we didn't already know. 

[Aristotelian]

12 minutes ago, Fiver6565 said:

The usage of Cano last night was poor, I don't even blame him really.  Yankees had 9-1-2 coming up, and Torres is well known (based on the telecast) to hit Cano well, and hit sinkers well.  He laced that hit to RF off him on Tuesday where the Yanks screwed up the baserunning.  And Soto got a hit off him that same inning.  So it was pretty predictable that these guys were going to tee off when he came in, and that's exactly what happened.

Not to mention he's pitched a lot recently, and Burnes should have pitched another inning anyway.  Just baffling decisions by Hyde last night, and I'm not one to generally question those types of things.  Even if the Burnes thing was pre-ordained, the choice of Cano for that moment was terrible.

It was R-R-L-R coming up. Cano is the guy Hyde matches up against the toughest hitters. Yes, those guys got to him the previous game but that is his job and Hyde also probably saw a redemption opportunity to get his confidence back after a tough outing. I don't see why that was bad move except in hindsight it didn't work out. Congrats if you called it in the game thread. 

[dtk9119]

The bullpen has warts for sure, but if this offense doesn't figure out how to hit good pitching in the playoffs, the bullpen won't matter.

Even I got a little excited when they put 5 and 9 up on the board Tues and Wed, and then it crashed back to reality last night when I remembered they were facing Schmidt and Stroman. When facing a real ace like Cole they were completely shut down. What's gonna happen next week when they face Skubal, Reagins, and/or Lugo? The mediocre bullpen won't matter if they can't figure out how to score some runs off pitchers like that...

[gtman55]

1 minute ago, dtk9119 said:

The bullpen has warts for sure, but if this offense doesn't figure out how to hit good pitching in the playoffs, the bullpen won't matter.

Even I got a little excited when they put 5 and 9 up on the board Tues and Wed, and then it crashed back to reality last night when I remembered they were facing Schmidt and Stroman. When facing a real ace like Cole they were completely shut down. What's gonna happen next week when they face Skubal, Reagins, and/or Lugo? The mediocre bullpen won't matter if they can't figure out how to score some runs off pitchers like that...

Nail hit on head. It really comes down to the offense in the playoffs for us. I think our pitching is good enough overall especially the starters. Shaky sometimes sure, but they can hold their own most of the time. If we don't bring our "A" hitting game in the playoffs we won't go far.

[Moose Milligan]

The Achilles heel for this team is going to be the unit that doesn't step up in the postseason.

I can easily see scenarios where:

the bullpen is hot and provides good performances but the offense sputters and isn't clutch

the offense comes up big but the bullpen blows games late

starting pitching tosses some clunkers (not really likely with Burnes and Eflin) and they can't recover

the defense sucks and gives opponents extra outs to work with, blowing games open when the bullpen or SP would have been able to escape and continue

We've seen all of these units falter at one point or another during this season.  We've also seen all of these units perform very well at different times throughout the season.  So, we'll see what turns out to be the Achilles heel for the Orioles in the playoffs starting next week.

[HowAboutThat]

8 hours ago, SilverRocket said:

How often is a good bullpen built any other way?

The Guardians have the best bullpen and their key pieces are:

- Emmanuel Clase: acquired through the Corey Kluber trade before he had proven himself. He was never a top prospect: MLB had him as Cleveland's 21st best prospect in 2020, Fangraphs had him as their 15th best. https://www.mlb.com/prospects/2020/guardians/ https://blogs.fangraphs.com/top-46-prospects-cleveland-indians/

- Cade Smith: rookie with a 4.65 ERA in AAA last year. 1.94 ERA this year. Fangraphs had him as the team's 27th best prospect coming into the year.

- Hunter Gaddis: 4.50 ERA in MLB and 6.05 ERA in AAA last year. Converted to a reliever with a 1.59 ERA this year.

- Tim Herrin: 5.53 ERA last year. 1.95 ERA this year.

The Orioles had one of the best bullpens in 2022 and it was anchored by Jorge Lopez, Felix Bautista, Cionel Perez, all of whom you could count as dumpster diving.

Elias needs to use better judgement when he dumpster dives, prepare better for the high percentage chance that his dumpster diving pickups will fail, and increase usage of other means to get pieces.

Bullpen usage is another problem, but it’s hard to effectively juggle flaming torches. A wrong move burns badly 

[Moshagge3]

17 minutes ago, dtk9119 said:

The bullpen has warts for sure, but if this offense doesn't figure out how to hit good pitching in the playoffs, the bullpen won't matter.

Even I got a little excited when they put 5 and 9 up on the board Tues and Wed, and then it crashed back to reality last night when I remembered they were facing Schmidt and Stroman. When facing a real ace like Cole they were completely shut down. What's gonna happen next week when they face Skubal, Reagins, and/or Lugo? The mediocre bullpen won't matter if they can't figure out how to score some runs off pitchers like that...

First, Schmidt is having a better year than Cole. Second, the O's teed off Ragans and Lugo last time they faced them.

[Fiver6565]

48 minutes ago, Aristotelian said:

It was R-R-L-R coming up. Cano is the guy Hyde matches up against the toughest hitters. Yes, those guys got to him the previous game but that is his job and Hyde also probably saw a redemption opportunity to get his confidence back after a tough outing. I don't see why that was bad move except in hindsight it didn't work out. Congrats if you called it in the game thread. 

I didn’t post it in the game thread no, but I’m also not looking for credit. I thought it was a bad move at the time to remove Burnes in the first place, and choosing Cano at that point after he’d been bombed by those exact hitters, felt odd and off to me. The only real defense I could come up with was who if not Cano?  But taking Burnes out is essentially admitting that winning that night wasnt your top priority anyway, so why not also rest Cano, who you absolutely need in the playoffs and has pitched a lot?  I just didn’t get it in real time, and I still don’t. 

[Bemorewins]

12 hours ago, Uli2001 said:

In other news, water is wet. This was the issue last year, too, after Bautista got injured (and even before that). Elias doesn't get a pass here. He goes dumpster diving for relief pitching way too much. In today's game, if you don't have a competent BP you are cooked.

I agree with the part about Elias. He needs to operate with a little more humility (regarding his bullpen approach) and pivot in the offense regarding how he puts a pen together. He needs to get away from the arrogant thinking in believing that we are always "the smartest guys in the room" and can fix other teams junk/unwanted parts. That is fine to do some time (regardless of how much you spend). But you can't construct an entire pen made of castoffs and almost no guys with elite/power/strikeout stuff.

Yes it worked great with Felix, Perez/Lopez in 22', Cano in 23'. But the problem is that we are in '24. And some of those lightening in the bottle guys have reverted back to what their talent says that they are - mediocre. We have a pen full of decent/league average/mediocre arms. That's not what you really want heading into October.

[Frobby]

2 hours ago, Roy Firestone said:

Boy, Brandon Young who has some decent numbers at Norfolk must be injured or unimpressive to the front office to not even get a look for this bullpen. Bryan Baker is almost a waste of a call up.

You seem to pine for guys in AAA and then (with one notable exception) judge them very harshly if they don’t perform well instantly in the majors.  This is not the time to start experimenting with Young, and that’s no reflection on him at all IMO.

[Aristotelian]

16 minutes ago, Fiver6565 said:

I didn’t post it in the game thread no, but I’m also not looking for credit. I thought it was a bad move at the time to remove Burnes in the first place, and choosing Cano at that point after he’d been bombed by those exact hitters, felt odd and off to me. The only real defense I could come up with was who if not Cano?  But taking Burnes out is essentially admitting that winning that night wasnt your top priority anyway, so why not also rest Cano, who you absolutely need in the playoffs and has pitched a lot?  I just didn’t get it in real time, and I still don’t. 

Agreed, they were trying to preserve Burnes there. The division still hadn't been clinched, so try to win the game but within the rest management plan for your ace. Hopefully the fact they used Cano means there aren't any major concerns about his rest, but now you have to wonder.

[eddie83]

35 minutes ago, Frobby said:

You seem to pine for guys in AAA and then (with one notable exception) judge them very harshly if they don’t perform well instantly in the majors.  This is not the time to start experimenting with Young, and that’s no reflection on him at all IMO.

This post is sponsored by Hellmann’s. 

[dtk9119]

1 hour ago, Moshagge3 said:

First, Schmidt is having a better year than Cole. Second, the O's teed off Ragans and Lugo last time they faced them.

I would not consider Schmidt an ace. He won't even start for them in the ALDS (maybe ALCS if they make it?). As for Reagns and Lugo, that was Apr/May Orioles, not June-Sept Orioles. That said, maybe it was just an off night vs Cole. And who knows if the bullpen hadn't imploded in the 6th, maybe they string some hits together and knock Cole out of the game.