An overused pen for the Mets or just a couple of guys going thru expected rough patches?
The Mets’ bullpen Thursday night was great, as it delivered 6.1 scoreless innings, an outing reminiscent of what the group gave earlier in the season. Aside from last night, the bullpen has been rather leaky here in June. A lot of people say that this is a result of being overworked earlier in the year. Perhaps that’s true. However, my opinion is that it has less to do with being overworked and more to do with the inevitable stretch of bad games that 99% of all relievers go thru over the 162-game season.
Relievers tend to bunch their bad outings together. Typically, these span 6-12 games, where the reliever’s ERA in this bad span is at least twice as much as what it is otherwise during the season. And it’s certainly not unusual for it to be three-times worse, or even more disastrous. Let’s look at what some of the relievers in the pen have given the Mets here recently:
Huascar Brazoban – 11 G, 12 IP, 11 ER, 8.25 ERA (current)
Reed Garrett – 6 G, 4.1 IP, 6 ER, 12.46 ERA (current)
Ryne Stanek – 5 G, 3.2 IP, 6 ER, 14.733 ERA (6/4 – 6/15)
Stanek has had four consecutive scoreless outings since getting five days off following his 3 ER appearance on 6/15.
Here’s how two other relievers from the club have bunched their runs in outings:
Edwin Diaz – 6 G, 5.2 IP, 6 ER, 9.53 ERA (4/9-4/21). Since that stretch, Diaz has allowed 1 ER in 22 IP.
Jose Butto – 8 G, 11.1 IP, 7 ER, 5.56 ERA (4/5-4/27). Since then, Butto has allowed 5 ER in 26.2 IP for a 1.69 ERA.
There’s nothing saying that a reliever can’t or won’t have more than one bad stretch in a season where they bunch bad outings together. And there’s the rub. Is a reliever just going thru a rough stretch that every person out of the pen goes thru? Or is he just, you know, not very good?
Max Kranick surprised us early on with six scoreless outings, a 10-inning stretch. And then he had a 12-game stretch where he allowed 12 ER over 17 IP for a 6.35 ERA. Kranick followed up with three scoreless outings and then gave up runs in back-to-back games before winding up on the IL. Was the injury to blame or is Kranick just not a quality MLB reliever?
We can ask that same question of the three relievers who struggled the most in June. Stanek has the longest track record and he has a 112 ERA+ over nine years in the majors. His stuff seems okay, especially if they can avoid pitching him in the ninth inning, as Bob P outlined earlier this year. It’s a little more difficult to say with Brazoban and Garrett.
This is Brazoban’s fourth season in the majors. While not even half that of Stanek’s, it’s not like there’s a complete lack of a track record. In 184.1 IP in the majors, Brazoban has a 118 ERA+. He’s really good when he limits his walks. In his current bad stretch, Brazoban has 11 BB in 12 IP. Before then, he had 8 BB in 30 IP.
This is also Garrett’s fourth season in the majors. After his first season, he spent two years in Japan. He returned stateside in 2022 and he was not good either that season or the following year. Garrett’s 2024 campaign was easily his best in the majors and even that was hardly special, as he posted a 103 ERA+. This year’s been different, as he has a 164 ERA+ in his first 31 IP.
The pen will look a lot better if Stanek can continue to be a reliable 7th-8th inning guy and at least one of Brazoban and Garrett can be worthwhile, too. Plus, we can hope that Dedniel Nunez becomes the pitcher he was in 2024 before coming down with a season-ending injury. Nunez had trouble throwing strikes, both in the minors and majors in the early part of this season. Yet here in his second stint in the majors this year, he’s not allowed a walk in three scoreless appearances, covering 4.1 IP.
We can dream of a relief corps containing healthy and productive Diaz, Nunez, Butto, Stanek and Brooks Raley, who should be back around the third week of July. And if either Brazoban or Garrett can be reliable, too, that’s a nice pen. And there’s still at least one spot to cycle thru option relievers, hoping to get lucky with one.
And then the issue will not be with the pen but rather with having enough healthy starters to maintain a rotation without openers.
If Nunez is back that changes the outlook dramatically. He looked explosive last night. If he can fill the 8th inning role and set Garrett/Stanek for the 6th/7th it really puts everyone in the pen in their proper roles.