ARLINGTON, Texas — It is Father’s Day weekend. Lots of promotion of such around Globe Life Field. They gave out bucket hats one day. Some dads and their kids played catch on the field after Saturday’s game. Maybe Sunday, they will fire up the grill, too.
Even carried the theme over to manager Bruce Bochy’s postgame presser after a 4-2 win over Toronto Saturday. Took the podium looking like a proud papa. He should. After all, he is the father of modern bullpen usage.
After two rough months, it appears he’s got a corps of which he can be proud.
“I think it’s fair to say,” Bochy said of his confidence in the bullpen after high-leverage kids Josh Sborz and Will Smith locked down the win with three scoreless innings. “You look at their workload and the quality of work that they’re doing; it’s really picked up down there. The confidence is growing out there. You can see it.”
He could have stopped there.
But that’s how you know when a dad is really proud — they can’t just stop bragging.
“It’s so critical to have a good bullpen, because you really expect to play a lot of ball games that will be determined by [the bullpen],” he said. “They are so important to us. And I’ve been very pleased with how they are throwing the ball.”
The Rangers, even as they continue to lead the American League West, face plenty of challenges.
Currently: A shortage of hits with runners in scoring position. They scored their four runs Saturday on three homers, from Josh Jung, Jonah Heim and Corey Seager, but went hitless in five at-bats with runners in scoring position. They are in a 0-for-21 skid. That it is a crisis this year says plenty about this team. A year ago, it would just be considered another weekend at the park. Even with the slump, they continue to lead the majors in batting average, OBP, slugging and OPS with runners in scoring position. Yes, they’ve regressed. But regressing from a historic pace doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a fatal flaw.
There have been some defensive breakdowns over the last 10 days, the first dud of a turn through the starting rotation and seven losses in a nine-game stretch. For now, a good team in a slump.
The bullpen, though, has been the team’s biggest issue all year. Bochy made his reputation as a manager in San Diego and San Francisco with excellent bullpen management. The first two months of his return were marked by shuffling arms around the bullpen to find the right buttons. And if there has been some regression around the roster for the last 10 days, there has been improvement in key late-inning bullpen performance for a longer period.
Smith has been central to that. Go back to May 24 against Pittsburgh, when he entered a bases-loaded, one-out situation in the eighth and protected a one-run lead for a five-out save. It measured out, according to Baseball-Reference.com, as the single-highest Win Probability Added save appearance in Rangers history.
It’s also looking more and more like a turning point. Less than a week later, Grant Anderson was added to the bullpen. And Sborz was given a look in a high-leverage role. Since that afternoon in Pittsburgh, the Anderson-Sborz-Smith trio has combined for seven earned runs and just 33 base runners in 34 2/3 innings — a 1.81 ERA and 0.952 WHIP. The trio has 36 strikeouts to just seven walks. They are the guys to whom Bochy is turning over late-inning leads. They are emerging as “winning pieces.”
Alternating Sborz and Anderson gives the Rangers an available high-leverage option good for more than three outs almost every day. Sborz on Saturday entered a one-run game for Dane Dunning in the seventh and allowed one runner in two innings. He has pitched more than an inning 12 times this season in 20 appearances, including all six of his outings in the last two weeks. Anderson has gone more than an inning in three of his seven major league appearances.
Smith, who didn’t close last year and didn’t even make Houston’s postseason roster, pitched around a pair of singles to record his 12th save of the year and his ninth in 10 chances over the last six weeks. He’s done it all with what would be described as “average” stuff.
“But he’s got experience and big poise,” Bochy said. “Guys thrive on that. They lean on him.”
Said Smith: “I enjoy being trusted with the ninth. I was taught that if you are the closer of your inning, then you will have a successful career. But there is something different about the ninth. I’m just thankful that [Bochy] gave me shot again. You want to make him confident in his decisions.”
On Saturday, he sounded more confident than he’d been all season.
Like a proud papa.
