Why the Arizona Diamondbacks bullpen needs reinforcements

Why the Arizona Diamondbacks bullpen needs reinforcements

It’s probably not fair to do it today, honestly. We’re we’re going to do it, but it it it shines Gambo a spotlight on the bullpen yet again. Uh Shelby Miller pitching for the third consecutive day. You and I both agree that he that the the fact that he had to come into that game on Monday, even though he only threw four pitches to get out of that mess that Ryan Thompson left him, put him in that position where he was at least compromised for last night’s game in terms of three first time in his career he’s pitched three straight days. Now, I know you probably driving around you going, “Okay, so what? Suck it up, buttercup.” But that’s if you’ve never done it before, you know, it’s it’s you’re you’re not at your optimal best. And so it shines the the light on the the the trouble with the bullpen again, even though the bullpen was for the most part fantastic last night. Let’s talk about when help is on the way. And let’s start with Justin Martinez because it looked like the VO was right where it needed to be. It It is. I could give you really good news on Justin Martinez. Uh Jay Mart is arro arrived back in Arizona today and as long as he tells them what they want to hear. He had a he threw 101 last night. The reports are good. As long as he says I’m good. He will be back on Friday when they take on the St. Louis Cardinal in St. Louis. Okay. He will be back for that game. He flew back to Arizona earlier today. He’s in Arizona now. They’ll have a conversation with him. How do you feel? You feel good? Okay. You want to come back? Okay. Everything’s good. Not staying in Reno, not throwing again. He will be activated and ready for the Cardinal game on Friday. So, basically, they they wanted to take one look at him in live competition, you know, and just make sure everything. Now, from what I understand, obviously, we weren’t there. The command wasn’t so great. he was spiking some of his his, you know, his splitters and things like that, but the but the velocity was was where it needed to be and so now it just becomes a command issue which hopefully is just knocking the the rust off thing that the fact that they don’t feel like he needs another one. He just needed the one. That’s good news. Now, how they deploy him, how they use him, does he just get his job back? Does he, you know, like like I don’t know if you have the answer. I’ll be really curious to see how they use him once they get him back. I don’t think it would be in the highest leverage situation, like come in and close the game right away. Um, they might want to put him in a little bit lower leverage situation. But, you know, look, sometimes, you know, if you need him, you need him. I mean, if it’s seventh inning, it’s a two-1 game. You may want to go to him there. Not exactly sure. I just know, expect him ready for the Cardinal game on Friday. As long as he tells them he feels good. Okay. So he’s on the 60-day DL IIL, pardon me. So AJ Puck is still just by his nature going to be further out than Justin March. June 18th is the f is the day that he is eligible to come back. Today is May 21st. So we’re looking at a month. June 18th is the day he’s coming back. My understanding eligible to come back. Eligible to come back. But that my understanding is that there’s a a decent chance he will be back at the end of June. The end of June. So, no timeline’s been given by anybody, but I’ll give you one. You’re looking at about 5 weeks from now. So, I think it’ll be a little bit past the date where he’s eligible to come back on June 18th. But, yes, he is working his way back. They’ll get Puck back. They’ll get Jay Mart back. They’re hoping to get Thompson figured out. And then they feel really good that their bullpen will, you know, they understand. Everybody’s hyperventilating about the bullpen right now. And they get it. They understand it. But there is a feeling that Jay Mart’s back Friday, AJ Puck is back at the end of June. So probably Bernie a week to two weeks after he is eligible come to come off the 60-day then he would be ready. Okay. I I mean I’m not I swear I’m not trying to be negative here. Um because the the more bodies you can get back the better. That’s still a long ways from now. You know that that’s still getting AJ Puck back by the end of June. five weeks, five and a half weeks, whatever it might be. I mean, that’s still a long time that you’re going to have to it’ll be here before you know it, but there’s a lot of games between now and then they’re going to have to navigate and and so in order for them to navigate it successfully. Justin Martinez is going to have to be come back and he’s going to have to be elite. Hopefully, he can regain his ninth inning duties, slide Shelby Miller back to maybe a role for which he was actually intended for and not the one that he’s pitching in right now. Right. Ryan Thompson to me is the big one. I I I I still still a belief that he’s going to get it figured out. They’re not giving up on him right now. I I I hope they’re right. I hope they’re right. I just don’t know what situations they’re going to use him in where I feel comfortable with them testing that out. Unless it’s eighth inning and they’re losing nine to three. Okay, fine. Throw him. You know what I mean? Like there’s there’s not going to be very many situations where you’re going to be able to take Ryan Thompson out for a test spin to see how he’s doing, right? It’s going to have to be the lower leverage situation. Lowest leverage. The lowest of lowle leverage situations. You could come into the game when we’re up by more than 10 runs. I mean, honestly, I do. You feel comfortable with him? No. I mean, after last night’s game, after the two nights ago, you had to bring Shelby Miller into game. You were up by six runs. He couldn’t protect a six-run lead. You were on the ropes. Of course, I I understand them wanting to get right, them needing him to get right. He’s he’s like we talked about yesterday, he is so If you go back and look at 2023 when he had a sub one erra on their way to the World Series, huge. Look at him even last year, I think his RA was like 3.2, 3.3 for the season in 67 appearances. Huge. They need him back. He He’s You said it yesterday and I agree 100%. It’s he’s the reason why the bullpen’s all wonky right now. It’s not ju I mean it’s partially Justin Martinez and it’s partially AJ Puck anytime mainly Thompson. Yeah, you have those injuries. It forces everybody to go outside of roles. Ryan Thompson’s role has not changed. He’s still pitching the same role he was pitching in 23 and in 24. But because he’s been so bad at it, it’s just forced them into scramble mode right now because they can’t figure out how to even get to the eighth of the ninth. Look, that Shelby Miller is supposed to be a sixth inning pitcher, not the guy closing baseball games for you. This is not how it was drawn up. Shelby Miller is supposed to pitch in the sixth inning, not the ninth inning. But the biggest problem, like you’ve mentioned, is it’s just Thompson’s inability to do his job. And I couple that with Mantly, I really do. Those two together unable to get the job done is and then obviously Puck and Martinez getting hurt. So Puck and Martinez get hurt. Those two are down. Manip Thompson can’t get anybody out. Now you got four. So you got four guys that you went into the season with and said these are four reliable bullpen arms. AJ Puck, Justin Martinez, um Joe Maniply, Ryan Thompson. Four reliable bullpen arms. Now you can’t pitch any of those guys. Puck’s out. Martinez is out. maniplies in the minors and Thompson you can’t pitch in any game unless you’re up by 10 right now like that’s a that’s a problem that’s a problem you know thank goodness for guys like Beaks but like you know it’s not one guy is out or two four different guys have affected this pen all right let’s something we talked about yesterday as well going outside the organization and acquiring somebody else we talked a little bit about David Robertson um of course the trade deadline is still a long long ways away we had said yesterday you know you Got the St. Louis Cardinals coming up. There was once upon a time a belief that Ryan Hellley was available. Can’t imagine he is now with how well the Cardinals are off to. What about going outside the organization for somebody? I think that they will obviously continue to look at it, but nobody’s trading anybody right now. They’re going to stay engaged on all the relievers. Every team needs relievers. Everybody’s going to look for relievers. I did check on on Robertson and then they haven’t even really kicked the tires on him. Um, but I will tell you like if he does want $10 million a year, that’s just not going to happen here. Robertson maybe because of his age might be waiting to kind of see how things play out, not wanting to pitch a full season. Can he pitch half a season with somebody instead of a full year and it might be that he only wants to pitch in one or two places and he’s just kind of waiting on that. He might be able to say, “Listen, I pitched in this league for a long time. I made a lot of money. I’ll only pitch in these couple of places.” But I will tell you, I don’t think the D the Diamondbacks have not kicked the tires on David Robertson yet. They’re going to stay very engaged in all the relievers out there. And of course, when the trade deadline comes, if they’re in it, I would I would expect that they’re going to go get a relief pitcher. Uh but right now, it’s just again just monitoring all the different guys, keeping their tabs on them to get ready for when that day comes. Okay, one other guy I’m just going to mention, and I don’t think you have any information on him, unless if you do, I’ll be very impressed. And you usually do a very good job of impressing me with this. Do you know what? We’re coming up on the one-year anniversary of Andrew Sulfrank’s suspension. Oh, wow. Andrew Saulfrank was suspended on June 4th of 2020. Okay. All right. I’ll I’ll do some digging. I I I And it was for gambling, right? So, I I I don’t know what he’s allowed to do, what workouts he’s been doing on his own, but that is a name, you know, somewhere down the road. Would he be of use to the Arizona Diamondbacks? Cuz they’re coming up on the oneyear anniversary of his suspension, and it was a one-year suspension. And he was he was pretty good in 23. He took a step back in 24. Right. He was getting a little exposed in 24, but I don’t I have not used Nobody has told me that they’re looking forward to him coming back and counting on him. You saying Mantipy’s name made me think about Lefty and I’m like, “Oh, Sulfrank, that’s got to be coming up.” Yeah. June 4th. June 4th is one year for Andrew Sulfrank. So, just something to kind of keep in the back of everybody’s mind. Yeah. Thanks for watching Burns and Gambo. Click to see more from the guys and hit the button in the middle to subscribe so you never miss a video from Arizona Sports.

Can the return of Justin Martinez save the Diamondbacks from late game losses?

Subscribe to the Arizona Sports daily newsletter: https://bit.ly/3QWcj1x

Read articles from Arizona Sports: https://arizonasports.com/

Download the Arizona Sports app: https://arizonasports.com/the-arizona-sports-98-7-fm-app/

Sign up for texts from Arizona Sports: https://arizonasports.com/text-alerts/

Listen live to Arizona Sports: https://arizonasports.com/listen-live/

Watch live: arizonasports.com/watch-live

Follow the team: https://bit.ly/3R0PIAJ

ARIZONA SPORTS SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ArizonaSports/

X: https://x.com/azsports

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@arizonasports987

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arizsports/

ARIZONA SPORTS PODCASTS: https://arizonasports.com/category/podcasts/

Video: Felisa Cárdenas and Jeremy Schnell/Arizona Sports