Colorado Rockies: Here’s the thing about the bullpen

The Colorado Rockies have been playing nefarious baseball for quite some time now. Many are quick to say that the Rockies woes are due to the bullpen which could be partially true. However, that’s just scratching the surface on that subject. When you actually take a closer look and read between the lines, there can be some interesting developments made. 

Yes, the Colorado Rockies bullpen has seriously been a depressing sight to watch. However, let’s first start with how there is an outlier in this bullpen. His name is Adam Ottavino. The guy has been such a dominant arm out of the pen, but there are just too many bad apples that he gets lumped in with the rest. Ottavino has an impressive 0.89 ERA in 30.1 innings along with 48 strikeouts, the most of any bullpen pitcher this season for the Rox. Be that as it may, he can’t save the bullpen; he’s only one person. 

Many have started to criticize Colorado Rockies manager Bud Black on the way he’s managing the team, and more specifically, the management of the bullpen. Of course, we all internally groan when we see him come out to the mound to relieve another pitcher and the guy coming out of the bullpen is Bryan Shaw. Despite the fact that he’s blown leads for the team, he still gets called on. Then you have guys saying everything will work itself out despite more leads being blown and saves going down the toilet. 

So what’s there to do? Some of my colleagues have suggested trades to make the bullpen better or calling up players in the minors that could help the team out. It’s just a bad look when you’ve given out some fairly large contracts and those guys can’t deliver and show that they’re really worth all that money.

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Honestly, there shouldn’t be any excuse for the bullpen, but I’ll be giving them a big one. Earlier in the season, the Colorado Rockies offense had no problem giving their pitchers run support, but the thing is the starters weren’t able to sustain the lead. 

Which leads me to my to my big development: the bullpen is out of gas.

That’s it, that’s all, have a good day.

Here’s the thing: the Rockies starters can barely get through five innings let alone going deep into games. Sometimes, it’s an amazing spectacle to just see guys like Jon Gray or German Marquez reach the 7th inning, let alone finish it. That is where the problem lies. When you have pitchers giving up so many runs early on in games and can’t even make it out of the early innings, you’re going to burn through the bullpen. It’s this exact situation that’s hurting the Colorado Rockies. 

The Colorado Rockies bullpen was showing they were a super bullpen early in the season and it made the starting pitching look incredibly horrid. When you’re overusing them, it’s of course going to lead to problems down the road. Yes, the bullpen is going through some… stuff, but essentially, could be said with good reason. 

Next: It's officially do or die time in Colorado

If the starting rotation doesn’t get their stuff together, then there most likely won’t be a bullpen left. It’s bad when the Colorado Rockies starters can’t hold off on giving up runs and, even worse, when they can’t sustain run support. However, it’s even worse when they can’t have good quality starts that lead to the bullpen not having to be used as often as it is. The bullpen will keep suffering until the rotation actually can do something about their own pitching.