The bullpen woes continued for the Vermont Mountaineers, as another lead slipped away in the late innings against Mystic. The Schooners trailed 4-1 through 5 1/2, but scored five unanswered runs to hand the Mountaineers a sixth straight loss, 6-4.
Vermont is now tied for the worst start in franchise history with the 2010 team. In 2010, Vermont also started 1-6, and went on to lose a franchise-worst 27 games and post a .357 winning percentage.
The cause for this early-season skid is clear. Vermont's been able to build up early leads in four of the six losses, and they've taken them into late innings. It's there, however, that relievers squander them. Here's the splits for the Mountaineers between their starters and relievers:
Starters: 0-1, 32 IP, 6.2 K/9, 1.4 BB/9 1.00 WHIP, 1.41 ERA
Relievers: 1-5, 28 IP, 8.4 K/9, 4.2 BB/9, 1.71 WHIP, 6.75 ERA
The problem is that it's not a lot of Vermont's pitchers will pitch well, then struggle, or vice versa. Reliever Joey Benitez hurled four scoreless innings in the season opener, and came back against Danbury and gave up five runs in four innings. Joe Rocchietti allowed two runs, one earned, in four innings against Upper Valley -- and took the loss last night, allowing three earned runs in the bottom of the eighth.
Baseball Prospectus writer Keith Woolner came up with a way to sort relief pitchers appearances into eight categories -- shutdown (the opponent), slam (the door on them), cough (up the lead), choke (away the lead), cinch, stem (the bleeding), letdown, and mop-up. It's a fairly complicated set of criteria, but he explains it in-depth here, using the flowchart below to make it easier to comprehend.
Through six games, the Mountaineers have had their relievers make 13 appearances. For Woolner's categories, two don't count, having thrown more than three innings. Here's how the other 11 break down.
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Choke (3): The pitcher enters the game with the lead, but the tying run not on base, at bat, or on deck, pitches 3 or fewer innings, and loses the lead.
Two of these outings belong to reliever Morgan Maguire, who's 0-2 on the year with a 13.50 ERA. Opponents are hitting .409 against the Old Dominion right-hander, who's faced a bullpen-high 30 batters. He gave up a two-run lead on June 10th, then allowed four runs over the final three innings to blow a slim one-run lead. The other outing belongs to Kevin Kernan, who lost a two-run lead to rivals Upper Valley.
Cinch (3): Pitcher enters the game with the lead, but the tying run not on base, at bat, or on deck, pitches 3 or fewer innings, and never loses the lead.
This is an interesting category in my opinion. It gives credit to any reliever who enters a game with a lead bigger than one and keeps that lead. In two of these outings, Mountaineers let their opponents back into. Isbell, making his season debut, cut a four-run Vermont lead to just one, and Stadler, also making his debut, cut a three-run lead to one. Lamb's outing was a good one, but the other two were shaky.
Cough (1): Pitcher enters the game with the tying run either on base, at bat, or on deck, pitches 3 or fewer innings, and loses the lead.
In last night's loss, Rocchietti entered in the eighth with a slim one-run lead to protect. He walked the first batter he faced, then allowed a single. Rocchietti wasn't able to work out of the trouble, allowing a pair of RBI singles and a third run scored on a passed ball.
Letdown (1): Pitcher enters without a lead, and down by no more than 2 runs, and allows the lead to exceed 2 runs.
This is another interesting category, because it applies both in close games and in ties. In Callahan's case, he entered in the 10th inning of a 1-1 game with Sanford. He got an out but then allowed a walk-off solo home run to Chris Gaetano.
Mopup (2): Pitcher enters with the score down by more than two runs, and leaves without his team tying or taking the lead, regardless of outcome.
Both of these outings came against Danbury, with the game already out of reach. Feldman allowed three runs, but Kernan bounced back from a rough first appearance with two scoreless innings.
Stem(1): Pitcher enters without a lead, and down by no more than 2 runs, and exits without letting the lead exceed 2 runs.
Feldman allowed a lone unearned run, but kept the game close with Upper Valley. He entered after Kernan and "stemmed the bleeding."
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If you stuck with me through all that, I appreciate it. Out of the eight categories Woolner created, three are "bad." Choke, letdown, and cough are all negative ones. Unfortunately for the Mountaineers, through their first seven games, roughly half of their bullpen outings have ended in one of those three categories. Moving forward, it'll be interesting to see what they can do to keep leads late in ballgames.
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