The Dodgers bullpen has been absolutely brilliant thus far this season. In fact, heading into Monday night’s game their combined 1.81 ERA was the fourth best in all of baseball and the second best in the National League behind the Cardinals 1.00 ERA.

Through 25 games, Messrs. Baez, Frias, Garcia, Howell, Liberatore, Nicasio, Rodriguez and Santos are a combined 6-2 with only Santos having an ERA above the twos at 3.00 on the button.

…and then there’s Chris Hatcher – the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of the Dodgers bullpen.

When Hatcher is good (the Dr. Jekyll) he is very very good, but when he’s not (the Mr. Hyde) the Dodgers usually lose. In fact, of the five bullpen losses this season, Hatcher owns three of them. He is also responsible for one of the Dodgers two blown saves this season and his 7.20 ERA is the worst among all 13 pitchers currently on the Dodgers 25-man roster.

The Dodgers bullpen has five losses this season – Chris Hatcher has three of them.
(Photo credit – Jon SooHoo)

To his credit, Hatcher has two of the Dodgers six saves this season and has struck out 15 and walked only three in his 10.0 innings of work. He also has three of the Dodgers 20 holds this season.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that Mr. Hyde showed up on Monday night in relief of Clayton Kershaw, who was absolutely… well… Kershaw-like through seven innings, having allowed only one run on three hits while striking out eight and walking none.

Kershaw left the game with one out in the bottom of the eighth inning after surrendering a solo home run to Brewers shortstop Hector Gomez (who had tripled off of Kershaw earlier in the game) followed by a double to pinch-hitter Adam Lind. After relieving the reigning 2014 NL MVP and Cy Young award winner, Hatcher promptly gave up an RBI double to Brewers center fielder Carlos Gomez, thus blowing the hold, blowing the save and dinging Kershaw with an additional earned run. It was the second inherited runner that Hatcher allowed to score this season, tying him with J.P Howell for the team lead in this dubious category.

Hatcher then got Brewers first baseman Jason Rogers to ground out but Gomez took third on the play. This was followed by a bang-bang play at first base off the bat of Ryan Braun (of course it was) on which Gomez scored from third. The play was challenged by acting manager Tim Wallach (Mattingly had been ejected in the third inning for arguing a [blown] balk call) but the call was simply too close to be overturned (and rightfully so), thus allowing the run to count which, of course, proved to be the winning run – thereby completing the cycle for Hatcher (blown hold, blown save and the loss).

In all fairness, Wallach (presumably under prior instructions from Mattingly and Dodgers pitching coach Rick Honeycutt) had no choice but to bring Hatcher into the game in that situation in spite of the (almost predictable) outcome. Hatcher was the only Dodger reliever not used in Sunday’s 13-inning marathon at Dodger Stadium, thus making he and recently called up (earlier that day) left-hander Daniel Coulombe the only two real available options; and bringing Coulombe into a high-pressure save situation in his first game of 2015 would have been on the risky side.

Coulombe is 0-0 with a 1.74 ERA at Triple-A Oklahoma City this season. He has struck out 16 and walked four in his 10.1 innings of work. Oh… and he has one save with the OKC Dodgers.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

But one has to wonder, would the 25-year-old St. Louis native with a grand total of 4.1 major league innings as a September call-up last season with zero saves in zero save opportunities have been a better choice than Chris Hatcher?

I’ll let you be the judge of that.