Bullpen Report: May 5, 2015

• The Yankees bullpen, which has been nearly perfect this season, blew the one-run lead in the eighth inning tonight with Chris Martin and Dellin Betances allowing three runs between them. Betances, who allowed an unearned run and still maintains a sparkling 0.00 ERA, received his first blown save of the season. Martin received the loss after allowing two hits to start the inning. Although Martin’s ERA ballooned to 3.86 after tonight’s outing, he still supports a 1.67 FIP and 2.36 FIP with 13 strikeouts against two walks in 11.2 innings pitched. Not bad for the third best guy in the pen. The ROS projections for Martin aren’t too promising given his unsuccessful recent history but he’s also hasn’t been particularly lucky this season with a 72.7 LOB% and.258 BABIP. Martin hasn’t allowed a home run yet, and he likely won’t go all year without giving one up but his GB% is 54.8%, so it’s not as if fly balls keep on just missing. He’s far away from saves with Andrew Miller and Betances crushing everyone right now but Martin should be a hold machine with an above average strikeout rate, valuable in most, if not all, deep leagues.

• Toronto’s three run eighth inning gave the Blue Jays the lead heading into the ninth and Brett Cecil nailed down his second save of the year with a 1-2-3 10 pitch inning. Miguel Castro is in the minors and Aaron Loup and Roberto Osuna shouldn’t be sniffing the ninth inning so surprisingly Cecil’s job, which he lost earlier in the year, is somewhat secure.

• Non-save situation for Jonathan Papelbon but he allowed three baserunners and run, finishing the ninth inning for the Phillies. Ken Giles threw a scoreless eighth inning lowering his ERA to 0.73. Giles doesn’t have the same velocity this season (94.9 mph) as he did last (97.2 mph) but he was hitting 95+ tonight and even if he doesn’t creep up to last year’s number, it’s plenty to do damage. Of more concern would be Giles’ 5.84 BB/9 which will need to come down if hes to pitch like he did in 2014.

• Quick Hits and Tidbits: Adam Ottavino is likely heading to Tommy John surgery, ending his season. Axford should see the most saves but if he falters keep Betancourt nearby. Francisco Rodriguez went 1-2-3 with two Ks for his fifth save of the year. The Brewers are in rebuild mode, so he could be traded mid-season for a team looking to improve the bullpen. Drew Storen was unavailable after pitching several days in a row so Tanner Roark closed it out for the first save of his career. Roark had a 2.85 ERA in 198.2 innings last season, so naturally he’s pitching the ninth in 2015. Washington has an insane rotation but I still expect to see Roark pitch multiple inning outings in case he’s needed if someone gets hurt. Neftali Feliz threw a perfect ninth for his third save of the year. At this point, Feliz is far from his exciting earlier career and is more of an eh closer on a bad team with a 4.76/3.48/4.12 ERA/FIP/xFIP line.

Closer Grid:

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	Closer	First	Second	DL/Minors
Arizona	Addison Reed	Brad Ziegler	Evan Marshall
Atlanta	Jason Grilli	Jim Johnson	Luis Avilan
Baltimore	Zach Britton	Darren O’Day	Tommy Hunter
Boston	Koji Uehara	Junichi Tazawa	Edward Mujica
CHI (NL)	Hector Rondon	Pedro Strop	Jason Motte
CHI (AL)	David Robertson	Jacob Petricka	Zach Duke
Cincy	Aroldis Chapman	Jumbo Diaz	Tony Cingrani	Sean Marshall
Cleveland	Cody Allen	Bryan Shaw	Scott Atchison
Colorado	John Axford	Rafael Betancourt	Boone Logan	Adam Ottavino
Detroit	Joakim Soria	Al Alburquerque	Joba Chamberlain	Joe Nathan
Houston	Luke Gregerson	Chad Qualls	Pat Neshek
KC	Wade Davis	Kelvin Herrera	Ryan Madson	Greg Holland
LAA	Huston Street	Joe Smith	Vinnie Pestano
LAD	Yimi Garcia	Chris Hatcher	Pedro Baez	Kenley Jansen
Miami	Steve Cishek	A.J. Ramos	Mike Dunn
Milwaukee	Francisco Rodriguez	Jonathan Broxton	Will Smith
Minnesota	Glen Perkins	Brian Duensing	Blaine Boyer	Casey Fien
NY (NL)	Jeurys Familia	Carlos Torres	Buddy Carlyle	Jenrry Mejia
NY (AL)	Andrew Miller	Dellin Betances	David Carpenter
Oakland	Tyler Clippard	Evan Scribner	Dan Otero	Sean Doolittle
Philly	Jonathan Papelbon	Ken Giles	Luis Garcia
Pittsburgh	Mark Melancon	Tony Watson	Arquimedes Caminero
St. Louis	Trevor Rosenthal	Seth Maness	Matt Belisle	Jordan Walden
SD	Craig Kimbrel	Joaquin Benoit	Dale Thayer
SF	Santiago Casilla	Sergio Romo	Jeremy Affeldt
Seattle	Fernando Rodney	Danny Farquhar	Yoervis Medina
TB	Brad Boxberger	Kevin Jepsen	Ernesto Frieri	Jake McGee
Texas	Neftali Feliz	Shawn Tolleson	Keone Kela	Tanner Scheppers
Toronto	Brett Cecil	Aaron Loup	Roberto Osuna	Steve Delabar
Wash.	Drew Storen	Aaron Barrett	Blake Treinen	Casey Janssen

[Green light, yellow light, red light: the colors represent the volatility of the bullpen order.]