It's great that we won the division and are heading into the playoffs, but this bullpen has me worried. Watching them throughout the regular season, they have been very inconsistent. Every time Raley goes out, I just cringe that he's going to give up a homer or a grand slam.
Are they ever? Despite the success over the last 6 years or so, cant remember too many where going into the playoffs I said to myself that the bullpen was an area I need not worry about.
I predict that the bullpen will try their best, and, together with October baseball being incredibly difficult and lucky, we’ll all see what happens.
We managed to avoid a shitty bullpen ending the season in 2017, when we had multiple starters that could pitch a few innings in releif. 2019, not so lucky. Still more concerned about the offense scoring 2-3 runs per game.
The arms are there. I trust Pressly and Graveman in high leverage as much as I can trust any pitcher. Stanek, Y Garcia, Raley, Maton, and Javier all have the stuff to dominate, just a matter of if they’re “on” or not.
Some of the guys will have adrenalin that they will pitch out of this mind like F.Valdez. Some players play a different level when the playoff comes unlike some guy with the Nets basketball team. Remember JV was a killer during the regular season in 2019, but when the playoff came, he lost 3 straight games in the playoffs (1 vs Yankees, 2 vs Nats). JV postseason ERA was 4.33 and his Sept was 2.03. What I'm saying is don't expect the same result with the bullpen in the regular season into the playoffs. I'm more worried Toothpick pushing the wrong button, so I'm hoping big leads every playoff game so that he doesn't have to push any buttons.
JV noticeably wore down and probably shouldn’t have made every start on normal rest in 2019… but he had a historic year. The bullpen should be rested… and relatively healthy. That’s about all you can ask. I actually like this pen much more than the 2017 one. The 2019 one was tremendously good but even in a short span of games, with off days, guys can get worn out (Harris game 7). I expect a full mix of starters as relievers and some version of Stanek/Graveman/Pressly almost every game. Javier is a true wild card. He can be a tremendous weapon, but his inconsistency this year makes him unable to have a set role.
