Happy Memorial Day, everyone! Today, we honor the people who lost their lives serving this great country of ours.

In honor of the holiday, we are going to discuss something different…just kidding, we are going to talk about the Pirates again–namely, the pathetic excuse for a bullpen that this ball club trots out there after what have largely been good starts from the rotation. Here is a log of the Bucco bullpen performances over the past week.

• Monday: day off. You cannot give up any runs if you do not play.
• Tuesday: 5.2 innings, two earned runs — ERA = 3.18 (pretty good, all things considered. The Pirates came back to win this game against the Giants 7-6 in 10 innings)
• Wednesday: 4 innings, six runs (four earned) — ERA = 13.50 (the Pirates were up 5-3 when Jared Jones left the game, surrendered a run in the 8th and 9th innings, and then conceded 4 in the tenth, blowing a multi-run lead)
• Thursday: 3 innings, six earned runs — ERA = 18.00 (Paul Skenes left the game with a 5-1 lead, and the Pirates ended up losing 7-6 after Hunter Stratton was tagged with five earned runs in two-thirds of an inning
• Friday: 1.2 innings, two earned runs — ERA = 10.80 (the Pirates won this game 11-5, despite having an 11-0 lead at one point)
• Saturday: 2.2 innings, zero runs — ERA = 0.00 (the only spotless bullpen outing of the week, with Colin Holderman pitching 1.1 scoreless and David Bednar notching his eleventh save of the season)
• Sunday: 6 innings, seven earned runs — ERA = 10.50 (Martin Perez was forced to leave the game after suffering a groin injury. When he left, the game was tied 1-1. By the time it ended, the Braves had 8 on the board)

If you are adept at math, you will notice that the Pirates bullpen had an ERA of 8.21 over the past six games. Your ERA should never begin with an eight in the major leagues as a player, let alone as an entire bullpen. In contrast, the starting pitchers over the same timeframe had a cumulative ERA of 2.97, a very, very respectable number. The dichotomy between the starting pitching and the relievers is staggering, to the point where you dread the fact that the starter will most likely be relieved at some point during a ballgame.

The starting pitching being so productive is unsustainable. It is fully expected (for me, at least) that the rotation will regress to the mean at some point, as that is the heritage of the Pittsburgh Pirates. At some point, the bullpen will have to step up and get batters out. After all, that is the entire idea of relief pitchers to begin with. One thing that the bullpen has overshadowed, along with the incredible starting pitching the team has received, is the fact that the hitters are finally starting to produce. In the six-game span detailed above, the Pirates scored 34 runs, an average of 5.67 runs per game.

Now, one would assume that if the team is scoring 5.67 runs per game and the starting pitchers are allowing 2.97 runs per nine innings during a period of time, that the team would have won more than 50 percent of their games. Unfortunately, that is not the case. The Pirates only went 3-3 during that six-game stretch because of the complete and utter ineptitude of the bullpen. They cannot get anyone out, regardless of who the pitcher is that is brought in and who the guy standing in the batter’s box is. You cannot possibly expect to win games when the guys who pitch over a third of the team’s innings are allowing over eight runs per nine innings of work!

This is extremely problematic. Imagine how much better the Pirates’ record would be if they even had a SEMI-competent bullpen staff. There were three games during that six-game span during which a reliever was credited with a loss: Wednesday’s 9-5 loss to the Giants (Colin Holderman blown save, Carmen Mlodzinski loss), Thursday’s 7-6 loss to the Giants (Hunter Stratton blown save and loss), and Sunday’s 8-1 loss to the Braves (Carmen Mlodzinski loss). Assuming the bullpen at least held the leads in the consecutive losses to San Francisco, the Pirates would be 27-27 instead of 25-29, and would be tied for a wild-card spot instead of two games back.

Of course, the season is still young. Not even a third of the games have been played at this juncture. However, there do not seem to be any signs of rescue. Whoever gets recalled from the minor leagues to fortify the bullpen immediately begins to pitch like Stevie Wonder. In fact, there is only one relief pitcher in the entire organization in whom I have any trust, and that is Colin Holderman. He has a microscopic 0.55 ERA, albeit in limited action (he began the season on the injured list and has only thrown 16.1 innings, racking up 22 strikeouts and allowing just under a baserunner per inning [0.98 WHIP]).

What does a team do when they have no faith in the guys whose job description is to close out games? What does the manager do when there is no one he can trust? The answer to the latter question is simple, as Derek Shelton does not know what to do regardless of the talent and ability at his disposal. However, the former is a burning question for a club that has not been to the playoffs in a decade and keeps finding new ways to lose.

Have a great week!