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The Bullpen


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In just over a week, our bullpen has gone from a top 5 unit to the 25th unit in all of baseball. The bullpen ERA was around 3.60 and it is now up to 4.85 with 9 Blown Saves (most in MLB).

 

Hopefully like anything this is just a bad stretch and it will end soon. If not, this team cannot win when it has no offense and no bullpen.

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QUOTE(RME JICO @ May 20, 2007 -> 07:46 AM)
In just over a week, our bullpen has gone from a top 5 unit to the 25th unit in all of baseball. The bullpen ERA was around 3.60 and it is now up to 4.85 with 9 Blown Saves (most in MLB).

 

Hopefully like anything this is just a bad stretch and it will end soon. If not, this team cannot win when it has no offense and no bullpen.

 

 

We were up there in blown saves the entire time, it's just that our bullpen ERA (largely due to a lack of exposure to other teams, with the least bullpen innings compiled) was masking some of the bigger impending problems, which was the lack of a go-to set up guy.

 

We've gone through Thornton, MacDougal/Aardsma and now we're back to Thornton as our only reliable pitcher out of the pen, before you get to Jenks.

 

Sisco and Masset getting bombed in games that were already decided hasn't helped, along with the runs that were piled on yesterday after the game was already over (when the Cubs took the lead back in the 8th).

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QUOTE(Dick Allen @ May 20, 2007 -> 12:32 AM)
People were more concerned about the radar gun when putting the bullpen together than effectiveness. A lot of people on this site bought it as well. They really shouldn't complain.

 

Your right and that is exactly the selling point made by KW and Ozzie and Cooper. They fell in love with speed.

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The one defense I will give the bullpen is the blown saves stat. I'd bet we've had bullpen outings at least a few times where they have thrown 4 or 5 innings and given up 1 total run, but got a blown save because the run was given up in the 7th of a 3-2 game. That is a deceiving stat to say the least with this team, although most of the other ones aren't.

Edited by whitesoxfan101
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QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ May 20, 2007 -> 12:26 PM)
The one defense I will give the bullpen is the blown saves stat. I'd bet we've had bullpen outings at least a few times where they have thrown 4 or 5 innings and given up 1 total run, but got a blown save because the run was given up in the 7th of a 3-2 game. That is a deceiving stat to say the least with this team, although most of the other ones aren't.

 

 

Jenks against Oakland, Thornton in the second game of the season against Cleveland (that was back and forth), the last two Cubs games (MacDougal and Aardmsa), then you have Aardsma against DET (Thames homer to tie it, loss to Masset in extras) and then Aardma against Minnesota (gave up 3 of MacDougal's runs, the inning that started with "misplay" by Iguchi against their catcher).

 

April 5th and 24th, Thornton had blown saves but we came back to win, MacDougal April 19th against Texas (turned into a win).

 

Considering two weeks ago that Aardsma was our best reliever, he's fallen almost to the same place occupied by MacDougal.

 

Which leaves the option of going to WHICH RH reliever today in the clutch? No matter what, the Ozzie haters will jump on the decision.

 

I suppose we just have to use Thornton in the 8th no matter what opposing batters he would face?

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Nothing sucks more than watching the bullpen blow the game in the past few innings. We just have to remember that these guys are all young and have all played for losers before they came to Chicago (KC, Seattle, Cubs) now they have higher expectations.

 

I think they all have good stuff and will grow into their roles. The worst part about coming out of the bullpen is that if you have 1 bad outing it takes away from all the good outings you had.

 

This team really sucks right now and it sucks watching them, but they are only 4.5 games out of first in the best division of baseball and there are alot of games to be played. If we hit .250 for the rest of the year and the bullpen improves just slightly then we are an entirely different team.

 

I'm just as impatient as everyone else but we just have to wait it out.

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One thing I would like to see from our bullpen is stop pitching on the outside corner. Pitch inside. The outside corner is for guys like Moyer and Glavine who throw 85 mph, not guys that throw 95. Own that inside corner. Knock the batter down. Get in their head. You need to have the mentality of the nasty boys, Randy Myers, Rob Dibble and Norm Charlton.

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QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ May 20, 2007 -> 03:58 PM)
This has turned into a BIG BIG problem.

 

No, fans like you are making it a BIG BIG problem that doesnt exist. Yes they have been horrible this one series but who cares. I bet they come out against Oakland and fix their s***.

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What can we really do besides move Logan back to the minors and try somebody else ?

 

The guys in the pen have to get the job done. Simple as that. It's not going to be possible to reshape the pen during the season, so it's on the MacDougle's and others to get better.

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QUOTE(SoxFan101 @ May 20, 2007 -> 04:03 PM)
No, fans like you are making it a BIG BIG problem that doesnt exist. Yes they have been horrible this one series but who cares. I bet they come out against Oakland and fix their s***.

 

Well of course they will, Oakland's offense is pretty poor. Other than Jack Cust of course, he's amazing. And the bullpen ERA is in the bottom 3rd of the league, despite the fact they haven't been even close to overused this year. And this series, yeah, it's a big problem.

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QUOTE(whitesoxfan101 @ May 20, 2007 -> 04:52 PM)
Well of course they will, Oakland's offense is pretty poor. Other than Jack Cust of course, he's amazing. And the bullpen ERA is in the bottom 3rd of the league, despite the fact they haven't been even close to overused this year. And this series, yeah, it's a big problem.

 

Whatever, you overblow everything. Besides this series even with some of them having not 2 pretty era's the bullpen has been getting the job done. Im not going to let 1 horrid series bother me unless it continues onto the next couple.

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QUOTE(SoxFan101 @ May 20, 2007 -> 04:56 PM)
Whatever, you overblow everything. Besides this series even with some of them having not 2 pretty era's the bullpen has been getting the job done. Im not going to let 1 horrid series bother me unless it continues onto the next couple.

 

Although I admit of course part of it is the offense, we do lead the majors in blown saves and those ERA's are still bad. It's a cause for concern right now, other than Jenks and Thornton, who have looked good lately.

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