Part of being an opinionated sports blogger is the occasional realization that sometimes, something you wrote is completely wrong and deserves a trip to the virtual recycle bin. The issue could be irrelevancy or it could be timing. Last night, for me, it was the latter.
After a long day at work and the ultimate decision that Hot Take Tuesday would be pushed back to Wednesday this week, I sat down with a Natty Boh and watched the Orioles offense strike out 19 times and leave 11 men on base as they plated just two runs in a 13-inning, losing effort. Needless to say, that one Boh turned into a few more.
Because timing is everything in sports writing, I deleted the article I had written about how the Orioles offense is good enough to bail Ubaldo Jimenez out of his bad starts and that, even in losses, he’s still an important piece of the rotation. Scrapped the whole thing. Killed it with fire. Threw it about as far as Manny Machado hit that baseball in the sixth inning of Tuesday night’s game.
Part of that reaction is due to frustration after staying up for 13 innings just to watch the Astros walk it off after a completely preventable leadoff triple by the number nine hitter (play deeper, Jonesy).
1st pitch of AB vs last pitch. Damn it! pic.twitter.com/t3S03iTQFI
— Matthew Lathroum (@_MattyBoh) May 25, 2016
It was also partly because I want to save my Ubaldo hot take for a more appropriate time when, you know, the offense is actually putting runs on the board.
Maybe I’ll re-write it next week. Maybe next month. Maybe never. That’s yet to be determined.
What I do know is that we’re in for a frustrating season if we keep wasting really good pitching performances.
So, to shift my focus away from the offense, this week’s hot take is centered around the Orioles’ bullpen.
I’m not going to come out and say that our bullpen is the best in baseball because that is certainly debatable. I will say, however, that the most important pieces of our bullpen are neither our left-handed closer with the 97 MPH sinker nor the submarining set-up man owed $31 million over the next four seasons with his new contract.
GulfBird Sports/Craig Landefeld
Brad Brach and Mychal Givens are the most important pitchers in the Orioles’ bullpen.
Note, I didn’t say “best” pitchers. Zach Britton and Darren O’Day would certainly have something to say about that. However, I value Brach and Givens slightly more as a duo, and here’s why.
First, as I usually do, I’ll give some stats.
Brach has pitched to a 1.08 ERA this season. That’s three earned runs in 25 innings pitched. All three of the runs Brach has allowed this season have come in games the Orioles eventually won.
Givens’ ERA is slightly higher, at 1.83 on the season. However, he struggled mightily out of the gate, allowing three earned runs in his first two appearances in April. Since then, Givens has surrendered just one earned run in 17.2 innings. That’s a 0.51 ERA over that span.
Brach is widely regarded as one of the best under-the-radar acquisitions of the Dan Duquette era and Givens is a converted shortstop who baffles right-handed hitters with his awkward delivery, 95 MPH heat and sweeping slider. Both have become extremely valuable to the organization.
Numbers aside, the true value of Brach and Givens comes from their ability to pitch multiple innings effectively. We saw that Tuesday night, when they held the Astros to a combined two hits in four shutout innings, striking out six in extra innings on the road. One of those hits was an infield single that Brach surrendered to Luis Valbuena.
For a team that still has many questions surrounding the starting pitching (looking at you, Ubaldo), having dominant middle relievers who can give you multiple innings when necessary is huge, especially when the starters have trouble going deep into games. That’s where the value of Givens and Brach comes in.
This is not to take anything away from O’Day or Britton. Both are fantastic and they add their own flavor to what is one of the top bullpens in baseball. We are lucky to have them but we are also lucky to have Givens and Brach, and that’s what I want to emphasize.
The baseball world knows about Darren O’Day and Zach Britton. The Orioles know about Mychal Givens and Brad Brach. As a unit, they make up a formidable group.
