The Royals Dominating Middle Relief Performance
Bruce Chen pitched pretty well for the Royals today, holding the Astros to just one run through 5.2 innings. But what happened after Ned Yost lifted Chen was the real noteworthy story from this game. Here is every plate appearance between a Royals middle reliever and an Astros hitter this afternoon.
Bottom 6:
Kelvin Herrera strikes out Chris Snyder.
Bottom 7:
Kelvin Herrera strikes out Brian Bogusevic.
Kelvin Herrera strikes out Jose Altuve.
Kelvin Herrera strikes out Brian Bixler.
Botton 8:
Jose Mijares strikes out Jordan Schafer.
Greg Holland allows a single to Carlos Lee.
Greg Holland walks J.D. Martinez.
Greg Holland strikes out Jed Lowrie.
Greg Holland strikes out Chris Johnson.
Nine batters faced, seven strikeouts. Jonathan Broxton pitched around a couple of base hits in the ninth inning to earn the only save given out in the Royals 2-1 victory, but the real stars of this performance were Kansas City’s three middle relievers.
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I love baseball.
And the diminutive Tim Collins didn’t even get in the game.
A pitcher struck out the side, a lefty specialist got the out he was supposed to, and then a pitcher strikes out two batters, stranding a RISP, after allowing a hit and walking a batter.
This is happens all the time.
Please prove the assertion that you have made. You claim that there are often 7 consecutive recorded strikeouts by the bullpen. When was the last time that this even occurred?
There were 7 straight outs via the strikeout but it isn’t as if they retired them in order.
Also take a look at the batters that K’d.
Snyder 29% k rate
Bogusevic 21%
Altuve 13%
Bixler 37%
Lowrie 18%
Johnson 25%
He asked for evidence. Why are you saying other things
http://espn.go.com/mlb/playbyplay?gameId=320421129
not exactly the scenario you demanded, but here was a game where venters and kimbrel recorded six consecutive swinging strikeouts (with no walks, hits, or errors in between), and the opposing reliever, david hernandez, struck out the side, two of them swinging, in the intervening half of the ninth.
Yesterday the Cubs bullpen provided 3 no hit innings
Luck. If you don’t strike them out, could have just as easily been a base hit. This is sarcasm BTW.
This does not warrant an article unless you’re going to actually give it a thoughtful write up. This is almost as lazy as the SB/CS article last week, except at least this isn’t passing itself off as conclusive data.
I agree. You keep churning out a lot of high quality articles, but lately there have been quite a few stinkers.
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Ok, you put down your Pulitzer and write something positive about the royals.
The Kansas City Royals are better than the Chicago Cubs.
Oh, is that really positive at this point?
Have you guys thought about implementing a nice vbulletin style forum? I think a lot of people would register and it would provide a place for people to talk about games and specific players in threads. The forum now sucks.
There’s a forum?
This just shows why closers are overrated and the save statistic is flawed.
tell that to Freddi Gonzalez “bottom 9? Tie game? The heart of their order coming up? It’s not a save situation, so of course instead of using Kimbrel, I think I’ll bring in Durbin or Hernandez to give up the game”.
While this article is only highlighting one game, it underscores the fact that the Royals have one of the best bullpens in all of baseball. Tim Collins, Kelvin Herrera, Jose Mijares, Greg Holland, Johnathan Broxton, etc. And they have done all this without Joakim Soria!
I have no problem with a quick article that points out something of interest without heavy anaylsis. The Royals have a young and exciting bullpen, and I imagine we’ll be hearing more about them in the future.
AstrLOLs…doesn’t count.
But seriously, for those who think this is a stupid post, nobody is forcing you to read it. It was interesting and informative
Agreed, not every post needs to be ground breaking research. The dude saw something interesting, something few other people saw (Astros vs. Royals???), and wrote about it.
The real bummer about this series is that Tim Collins did not pitch at all, denying us the “awwww” moment of watching him pitch to Jose Altuve.
Collins was practicing for his part in the Wizard of Oz remake:
http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/1194834/guild_final_medium.jpg
I’m all about the Tiny Tim references, as long as you’re aware he’s (not even arguably) one of the 10 best RP in the league at the moment.
xFIP – 7th
WAR – 10th
K/9 – 10th
If you limit it to relievers that have pitched at least 30 innings.
xFIP – 2nd
WAR – 7th
K/9 – 4th
The guy is really just flat out dominating right now.
When Aaron Crow is your 4th best middle reliever, you’re doing pretty well for yourself. I own both Collins and Herrera in ottoneu points and they are studly.
I have them both for a $1 apiece, as well 😉