It’s no secret that the Dodgers bullpen has been the team’s Achilles heel for the past two postseasons. There is no greater example of this than last year’s National League Division Series when a bridge between their starting pitchers and closer Kenley Jansen was non-existent, forcing Dodgers manager Don Mattingly to keep his starters in longer than he should have. The results were disastrous and led to a quick exit from the postseason for the Dodgers – a team that many baseball experts had predicted to win the World Series.

During the off-season, newly appointed President of Baseball Operations Andrew Friedman and new general manager Farhan Zaidi set out to fix this glaring weakness and brought in a slew of new relievers while dumping a few others. The initial results were overwhelming when Messrs. Jansen, Howell, Baez, Frias, Garcia, Peralta, Nicasio and Hatcher posted the best bullpen ERA in the league for the first six weeks of the season.

…and then the bottom fell out.

From mid-May through the All-Star break the Dodgers bullpen was painfully similar to the one from last year, forcing Friedman and Zaidi to make some moves at the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline that they probably hadn’t planned on making. What they ended up with – or rather who they ended up with – was right-hander Jim Johnson who, quite frankly, has been a complete bust (0-3, 9.56 ERA with three blown saves) and left-hander Luis Avilan who has been a godsend (0-1, 5.54 ERA with 16 strikeouts in 13.0 innings pitched).

Dodgers bullpen coach Chuck Crim calls left-hander Luis Avilan the biggest surprise to the Dodgers bullpen this season. Avilan was acquired from the Atlanta Braves just prior to the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

But is the current Dodgers bullpen good enough for the postseason? Will they be able to avoid the middle-relief meltdowns that plagued them in the past two postseasons? According to bullpen coach Chuck Crim they are and they will.

“When guys have success like in spring or whatever early, we don’t touch them, we let them go do their thing. I mean, how dare us ruin them,” said Crim. “That’s kind of how the bullpen was in the beginning of the year anyway, they were doing so good and how dare us ruin good productivity. To be a pitching coach, to be a good coach, you don’t over-coach, you let them go do their thing. But there’s adjustment periods that they have to make as the league adjusts to them.

“What happened with our arm strength was they were getting away with some mistakes early in the year. They were throwing the same pitches that they’re throwing now but they were making some mistakes,” Crim added. “When [opposing hitters] got used to hitting 94 and 95 through the year instead of missing it or grounders or popping up like they did early in the year, they started to barrel it because they were getting better. The young arm, the young gas is going to beat guys early in the year, they’re going to get away with more mistakes early but as the season goes along and the hitters get better, better bat accuracy, and they start to catch up to the guys and pretty soon those mistakes weren’t pop-ups anymore, they were home runs, they were gappers as opposed to getting outs out of them, so now [our bullpen] starts to struggle”

The relationship between bullpen coach Chuck Crim and his pitchers is as close as you will find anywhere within the Dodgers organization. (Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

So how does the bullpen adjust once the hitters catch up to their stuff?

“Our job as pitching coaches is keep their confidence up, make adjustments, keep trying to make adjustments, getting to make them work their secondary mixes in more and allow them to start to develop as major league pitchers, as mature pitchers,” Crim said. “It’s all a process, we have young guys out there, which is great, but they have to mature also.”

As most Dodger fans know, Dodgers closer Kenley Jansen has been brought into several games recently in non-save situations with the team up by as many as four runs. And while this may seem odd or unusual to some, it’s actually all part of a plan to keep the 6′-5″, 265-pound hard-throwing right-hander tuned-up for the postseason.

“It’s a mixture of trying to keep him sharp, trying to keep him active,” said Crim. “That’s a big body to try to keep in tune, so the more he throws, the more in tune he is with that big body. But it’s also to win ball games this time of year. We’re in a position right now, especially when the Giants lose and we know the Giants have lost… this is our season right here. It really comes down to this next week or two. A four-run lead, it’s a save, it’s a win. It may not look as a save in the column but it’s a win for the Los Angeles Dodgers and it’s one step closer. It’s all about getting wins and taking care of business as soon as we can.”

Although Crim acknowledges that using Jansen in non-save situations is to help prepare him for the postseason, he said that it’s more about winning ball games right now to get to the postseason.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

With success comes confidence and with confidence comes a positive attitude, and in spite of an occasional hiccup the Dodgers bullpen has a very positive attitude with less than two weeks remaining in the regular season.

“Our motto now in the bullpen is ‘Hey, nobody scores. Nobody scores,'” said Crim. “I’ve got Avi (Luis Avilan) to the point where I say ‘Tell it to me… tell it to me.’ When he leaves the pen I’ll tell him ‘Hey man, nobody scores.’ It’s kind of funny but we instill it in their brains, I don’t care if it’s bases loaded and nobody out, nobody scores.”

Of course no matter how often you say ‘Nobody scores’ and no matter how much confidence you have, occasionally somebody will score. This isn’t due to a lack of effort or even a lack of skill, it’s because this is baseball and, as we all know, anything can happen and often does when you least expect it.

But love it or hate it, the Dodgers bullpen is what it is. What you see is what you get. There will be no (significant) changes to it from this point on.

The best that we can hope from it is… “Nobody scores.”