One of the major reasons for the Mets run in 2015 was the Nationals bullpen. The bullpen that season had the third most blown saves in the National League.
It was a bullpen those Mets beat up on to win some key games. In the push to win the division, the Mets swept the Nationals twice. The Nationals bullpen blew four of those six games, and the Mets got the win against the Nationals bullpen in five of those six games.
The 2017 Nationals bullpen might be even worse than two years ago.
After failing to obtain a closer in free agency or to acquire one via trade, the Nationals chose to stay in-house for their closer. This has led to Dusty Baker playing Russian Roulette with Koda Glover, Blake Treinen, and Shawn Kelley. The end result has been the Nationals blowing the second most saves in the National League.
But it’s not just the rotating ineffective closers who are poor. It’s the entire Nationals bullpen:
- Glover 5.12 ERA
- Treinen 6.33 ERA
- Kelley 7.16 ERA
- Enny Romero 4.08 ERA
- Oliver Perez 4.97 ERA
- Jacob Turner 4.55 ERA
- Joe Blanton 8.78 ERA
About the only competent bullpen arm the Nationals have is Matt Albers, who is having an anomaly of a season, partially fueled by an unsustainable .220 BABIP. In fact, he just blew a save against the Braves on Monday night.
This bullpen is statistically horrendous, and it’s killing the Nationals. Their 11 blown saves are the second most in the National League, and their 5.11 bullpen ERA is the worst in the National League.
The bullpen has played a major role in the Nationals losing four straight and five of six. In that time frame, the Nationals lead over the Mets has shrunk from 12.5 games to 8.5 games in less than one week.
Despite all that has happened to the Mets this year, they’re still in the National League East race thanks in large part to the Nationals bullpen.
Pitching wins ballgames and the Mets need to bank on that.
Thoughts from Rob Piersall…
While the Mets bullpen has been far from their strong suit in 2017, the starters are going to be the ones that are going to have carry this team pitching wise.
The Mets have received positive starts recently from Robert Gsellman, Steven Matz, Seth Lugo and Jacob deGrom, the latter of whom fired the first complete game by a Mets pitcher in 2017 on Monday.
If our starters can give us six strong innings, the Mets have enough quality relievers to carry us the rest of the way.
I would take Jerry Blevins (2.01), Josh Edgin (2.49) and Addison Reed (2.70) over anyone in the Nationals ‘pen any day of the week.
It will be an important series against Washington this weekend, but if the Mets can make Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and Gio Gonzalez throw a lot of pitches and get to their bullpen, the Mets offense can inflict some damage on them.
