MLB: Top five bullpen meltdowns of Saturday
Saturday was a day of epic meltdowns for five MLB teams as the Boston Red Sox, Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers, Milwaukee Brewers and the New York Mets bullpens all handed their opponents a victory, and in some cases those losses pushed them out of the top of their division standings.
The five bullpen meltdowns of Saturday were memorable as the Brewers lost by one run to the Cincinnati Reds, allowing the Reds to break an 11-game losing streak. The Mets challenged rival Chase Utley of the Los Angeles Dodgers and lost. The Tigers did what the Tigers bullpen has done a lot of the past few years and didn’t show up when called upon.
The Red Sox bullpen gave up six runs in less than two innings pitched, and the White Sox relief pitching forgot about the most important inning, allowing the Kansas City Royals to have their largest ninth inning comeback in team history, and in the process lost the AL Central top spot.
It wasn’t a pretty day for these five bullpens, as good swings were on target, bad pitches were thrown, maybe not the best managerial decisions were made, but it did make for an interesting day of baseball to say the least.
Here are the epic Saturday bullpen meltdowns of May 28 ranked in order of bad to the very worst, showing us even professionals can not just have bad days at the ball park, but really bad days that if we’re a fan of the following teams, we won’t forget in quite some time.
Next: No. 5 Bullpen Meltdown: Brewers
5. Milwaukee Brewers
The bullpen of the Milwaukee Brewers isn’t expected to be making saves in the postseason once October arrives, but their team had built a 6-1 lead after six innings Saturday with starting pitcher Chase Anderson going five strong innings, allowing just one run on five hits and no walks. He left the mound with three strikeouts and seemed to have the Brewers in a good place with four innings left in the NL Central matchup.
That assessment of the game was very wrong, as the bullpen of the Brewers from the seventh inning on forgot to bring their best pitches because they allowed a five-run seventh inning, then allowed the Reds to gain the go-ahead (what ended up being game-winning) run in the top of the ninth.
Milwaukee eventually lost the game by a 7-6 score.
The loss by the Brewers was even worse because it was the first time the Reds had won a game since May 15, a streak of 11 games lost until their comeback Saturday in Milwaukee.
For the Brewers Michael Blazek began the downfall of Milwaukee’s bullpen by finishing with a line of 0.2 innings pitched, allowing five runs on five hits and no walks. He gave up a home run to Adam Duvall, a three-run shot, to set the tone for the rest of his bullpen teammates.
From there after an scoreless appearance from Jhan Martinez, Jeremy Jeffress entered the game and allowed one run on one hit and one walk in the ninth that eventually led to the loss for Milwaukee.
There were worse bullpen showings on Saturday, but this one still ended up in a loss for the Brew Crew.
Next: No. 4 Bullpen Meltdown: Tigers
4. Detroit Tigers
The Detroit Tigers aren’t known for having what can be described as an amazing bullpen in the first place, but on Saturday in Oakland their relief pitching allowed a total of nine earned runs in the sixth and seventh innings combined, with a five-run sixth and four-run seventh to their unfortunate credit.
Detroit trailed by a 3-1 score to the Oakland Athletics entering the sixth inning, then in their half tied the score at 3-3 with two runs added to their side of the scoreboard. Then the other shoe dropped so to speak with the A’s tallying their five-run inning in the bottom of the sixth with Warwick Saupold being charged with five earned runs in 0.1 innings pitched. He didn’t walk any batters, but allowed five hits and the aforementioned runs and not making it out of the sixth inning.
With a lot of damage done in the previous inning, Alex Wilson added to the Saturday bullpen woes of the Tigers with 0.2 innings pitched on the mound he was charged with four earned runs on five hits and no walks. He allowed a three run home run to Chris Davis in the seventh inning to put the Tigers out of reach for the win, as Detroit lost to the A’s, 12-3.
Next: No. 3 Bullpen Meltdown: Red Sox
3. Boston Red Sox
For the Boston Red Sox games and especially losses like the one they had on Saturday hurts more than usual as they are battling to stay at or near the top of the AL East standings, but their bullpen wasn’t able to hold onto the win in what was an eventual 10-9 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays in walk-off fashion.
The final three relief pitchers for the game wearing a Boston uniform allowed six runs in a total of 1.2 innings on the mound, with the trio of Tommy Layne, Junichi Tazawa and Craig Kimbrel each allowing two runs, and a total of seven hits, the same amount of hits that Red Sox starter Rick Porcello allowed in 6.2 innings.
Layne failed to record an out, facing two batters.
Kimbrel was charged with a blown save and the loss, falling to 0-2 on the season, which amounts for both of his blown saves. One plus for the Red Sox bullpen was Matt Barnes who in 0.1 innings of relief didn’t allow a run, but did walk a batter.
It wasn’t a pretty day for the Red Sox for sure, but at least the Red Sox were able to keep ahold of first place in the AL East following the loss.
Next: No. 2 Bullpen Meltdown: Mets
2. New York Mets
The bullpen of the New York Mets had to play earlier than expected on Saturday since starting pitcher Noah Syndergaard was tossed from the game after 2.1 innings of pitching for throwing behind Los Angeles Dodgers batter Chase Utley.
From there the bullpen saw five of their own finish the game for the Mets, where they allowed a total of nine runs, with all nine of them being earned.
Logan Verrett came in as the reliever who replaced for Syndergaard pitched 3.2 innings allowing two runs on four hits and three strikeouts (including a home run). Antonio Bastardo failed to record an out against the three batters he faced, allowing three runs on two hits and a walk.
The Mets bullpen isn’t finished with Hansel Robles making an appearance for 1.2 innings, allowing three runs on there hits and two walks. He also have up three home runs. Jerry Blevins was able to stop that inning with 0.1 innings of relief, but in ninth Jim Henderson gave up one run on two hits, that being a home run.
In all the Mets bullpen allowed nine earned runs, walked three, struck out seven and allowed five home runs, so it is safe to say it was a bad day for their bullpen who had to pitch earlier than usual. To top it all off manager Terry Collins was ejected when Syndergaard was sent to the clubhouse as well.
Next: No. 1 Bullpen Meltdown: White Sox
1. Chicago White Sox
The bullpen of the Chicago White Sox had a very unmemorable day and one every White Sox fan would love to forget as soon as possible. Their performance allowed the Kansas City Royals to set a team record by having a seven-run, one-out rally in the bottom of the ninth inning to knock the White Sox out of first place in the division with a 8-7 win.
KC was the home team and with one out in the bottom of the ninth took complete control of the game by taking full advantage of the White Sox bullpen implosion with the ninth inning seeing two pitchers in closer David Robertson and reliever Tommy Kahnle not get the job done whatsoever.
Robertson entered the game without a save on the line as the White Sox were up by six runs. In 0.2 innings he allowed the Royals to score six runs on four hits and two walks, resulting in his worst outing of the season, seeing his ERA increase to 3.72.
That wasn’t it for the White Sox because Kahnle couldn’t force extra innings with his pitching, as the Royals scored their walk-off game winning run off him, with the reliever allowing one run on two hits and two walks.
In all Robinson threw 29 pitches (16 for strikes) as he faced a total of eight batters in his 0.2 innings pitched. Kahnle failed to record an out against the four batters he faced, finishing with 22 pitches, just 10 for strikes.
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Sadly even though White Sox fans want to forget this performance it will be very tough to do so, as it was especially bad, as the pitching staff wasn’t managed the best and the result for that Saturday showed.