Bullpen Blues

The same ole story of the year continued on Wednesday night in an extra inning victory. As the saying goes winning is winning, however so far this year we have had our share of not enough ups and way too many downs. With the sweep of the Diamondbacks are we beginning our run to the top of the division?

The bullpen as a whole to say it kindly has struggled so far this year. The good, there is one lone bright spot to this point and that is the success of veteran Pat Neshek. The side-armer has pitched 21 innings and has an ERA of 0.86 while striking out 23. Neshek seems to be the go-to-guy in a jam kinda like Seth Maness was last season.

The bad is the majority of the bullpen. They have all had a few good outings and a few more bad ones. Randy Choate, Maness and Kevin Siegrist are all having better success of late after early struggles. Choate has the highest ERA which was inflated the night the Cubs decided to hit and score so many runs. Maness hasn't allowed a run since April 28 but has only pitched 6 2/3 innings in the last 21 games. How can a pitcher get back on track if not used on a regular basis?

The ugly has to be Carlos Martinez and Trevor Rosenthal. Both are getting hit and getting hit often. Yes they have had good games and bad like the others but these two offer a slight more concern. Martinez has been great in games and simply bad in others. Rosenthal on the other hand is really fitting in nicely in a long line of Cardinal closers that always seem to make each save interesting. Rosenthal might want to find his dominant stuff again soon if he wants to keep his closer role. With Jason Motte being activated from the DL this week maybe this will give Rosenthal a boost of confidence or a shot of adrenaline to get his fastball back where it was last year. If the struggles continue like this could we see Motte back in his closer role?

Martinez still has the 99-100 mph gas on his heaters, however Rosenthal seems to be running on a weaker octane and is only averaging 95-97 mph with occasional touches of 98. So is that the reason Rosenthal is getting hit hard? I am sure you have heard all the commentators talk on the pre and post game shows about these concerns and I have to agree with what they say. Location, location, location is very important even with the upper 90's stuff and if Rosenthal or any of the pitchers aren't hitting the target bad things usually happen. The problem I have is the plan of action between Rosenthal and Yadier Molina. Molina should know by now that Rosenthal is not throwing as hard as he was last year so why is he calling for so many fastballs? I have to think that some of it is the location problem and maybe Rosenthal is shaking Molina off which falls back on Molina to correct the young pitcher. There are a lot of closers who aren't able to throw the 100 mph fastball and they are successful so lets hope Rosenthal is able to find his control and make the save boring again.

Martinez is the biggest question mark of the bullpen in my opinion. He should have won the starter job based on stats out of spring training over Joe Kelly in the opinion of others and then I made the wrong prediction when I thought he would go down to AAA Memphis when Motte returned from the DL. Martinez still has his good fastball and has had some good games, however when he is having a bad game he just looks lost and out of control. Does he still have a sour taste in his mouth for not winning the rotation job out of spring training? Or even more so, does he feel passed over by not moving into the rotation when Kelly was injured and placed on the DL? Only Martinez truly knows the answers to those questions and I would like to think that the answers are all no. Let us also not forget he won't be 23 until September, so he needs maturity.

Are pitchers treated differently than position players? Is Mike Matheny still playing favorites? As we all know it wasn't too long ago that Kolten Wong and Shane Robinson were sent down to Memphis to get some at bats and to work on some things. Both have returned and both have already made an impact so far on their returns. Why does it feel like that if a position player needs to have extra work they seem to be sent down without much hesitation but if a pitcher struggles they are given the chance to fix it in the majors? Obviously I have no answer to that question but like throwing it out there to start some discussion. If memory serves, didn't we have to endure several real rough outings before something was done with Mitchell Boggs last year? I by no means am comparing Martinez to Boggs because that is just plain unfair. So why is it so crucial to keep him in the Majors and not send him down to work on a few things and regain some confidence? We have Motte back for our eigth inning guy and we even have another former Major League closer, David Aardsma in AAA Memphis who is doing very well. Martinez is a special talent and one that should be given plenty of chances to succeed and in this situation improve on his control. Michael Wacha had to endure a trip to the minors to work on a few things and you saw how well he did in the playoffs after he returned. It would certainly stand to reason that Martinez could enjoy the same success and could have the same boost to the team that Wacha provided last year for the playoff push.

Time will tell on how things pan out. The year is moving along faster each game and the saying "it is still early" does not apply any longer. Let's just hope Matheny and the team knows what they are doing by keeping Martinez in the setup role and not sharing the work load to the rest of the bullpen. The bright side of this is we have lots of good quality arms all trying to squeeze into a seven man bullpen to give options is all else fails.