I know today's loss is more on Edwin Jackson's lousy pitching, but Carlos Marmol's THREE 8th inning walks just fired up my frustration with the Cubs' bullpen again.
Chicago has three starters with ERA's under 3.00: Wood, Feldman, and Samardzija. Only three other teams in all of baseball can also claim that feat: St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Washington. All three of those clubs are either first or second in their divisions. The Cubs are buried in fourth, 11 games out of second.
Meanwhile, the bullpen has an ERA of 4.79, which gets even worse if you remove James Russell's 1.29 and Kevin Gregg's .059. Marmol, despite posting horrendous numbers (5.64 ERA, 1.84 WHIP) has more IP than any pitcher in the bullpen right now. He and Shawn Camp are two of just 17 relievers with at least 10 IP and a WHIP of 1.84 or worse. And the Cubs have three relievers (Marmol, Camp, and Hector Rondon) among the bottom 31 pitchers (min: 10 IP) in ERA. As a point of reference for those stats: There are 222 relievers who have logged at least 10 IP this year. Chicago has three relievers in the bottom 13.9% in ERA, and two in the bottom 7.7%.
Oh, and did I mention that the Cubs have lost EIGHTEEN GAMES by two runs or fewer this year?
Seriously, is it that hard to figure out that the bullpen needs major help? It's not like it's exceptionally hard to find a decent middle reliever. The team hardly NEEDS another two or three Russells in the pen (although that would be fantastic to have). Hell, it'd be a ******* cakewalk to find people better than what we've been throwing out there so far (remember, somebody in the 15th percentile would be an IMPROVEMENT at this point).
But no, we're too busy designating guys like Michael Bowden (the second-best middle reliever on the roster, with a 3.78 ERA and a 1.14 WHIP in 16.2 IP) for assignment in AAA to make room for Garza, rather than dumping somebody like Camp, Marmol, Rondon or even Jackson to accomplish that.
When your bullpen absolutely blows, and you're losing a **** ton of close games, you don't keep your horrible relievers and get rid of one of the three decent-to-great ones you have.
I'd be more content with the losing if it were simply because the team sucked all around. But when everything else about this team really isn't that bad, and the team is 13.5 games out of first by June 3, I'm going to get pretty upset. It shouldn't take much to fix the issue, but so far it seems that the front office has little interest in making moves to do so.
Chicago has three starters with ERA's under 3.00: Wood, Feldman, and Samardzija. Only three other teams in all of baseball can also claim that feat: St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and Washington. All three of those clubs are either first or second in their divisions. The Cubs are buried in fourth, 11 games out of second.
Meanwhile, the bullpen has an ERA of 4.79, which gets even worse if you remove James Russell's 1.29 and Kevin Gregg's .059. Marmol, despite posting horrendous numbers (5.64 ERA, 1.84 WHIP) has more IP than any pitcher in the bullpen right now. He and Shawn Camp are two of just 17 relievers with at least 10 IP and a WHIP of 1.84 or worse. And the Cubs have three relievers (Marmol, Camp, and Hector Rondon) among the bottom 31 pitchers (min: 10 IP) in ERA. As a point of reference for those stats: There are 222 relievers who have logged at least 10 IP this year. Chicago has three relievers in the bottom 13.9% in ERA, and two in the bottom 7.7%.
Oh, and did I mention that the Cubs have lost EIGHTEEN GAMES by two runs or fewer this year?
Seriously, is it that hard to figure out that the bullpen needs major help? It's not like it's exceptionally hard to find a decent middle reliever. The team hardly NEEDS another two or three Russells in the pen (although that would be fantastic to have). Hell, it'd be a ******* cakewalk to find people better than what we've been throwing out there so far (remember, somebody in the 15th percentile would be an IMPROVEMENT at this point).
But no, we're too busy designating guys like Michael Bowden (the second-best middle reliever on the roster, with a 3.78 ERA and a 1.14 WHIP in 16.2 IP) for assignment in AAA to make room for Garza, rather than dumping somebody like Camp, Marmol, Rondon or even Jackson to accomplish that.
When your bullpen absolutely blows, and you're losing a **** ton of close games, you don't keep your horrible relievers and get rid of one of the three decent-to-great ones you have.
I'd be more content with the losing if it were simply because the team sucked all around. But when everything else about this team really isn't that bad, and the team is 13.5 games out of first by June 3, I'm going to get pretty upset. It shouldn't take much to fix the issue, but so far it seems that the front office has little interest in making moves to do so.
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