The Orioles locked down a 4-2 win over the Diamondbacks tonight, pulling to an AL-best 25-12 record. The victory, which included some interesting decisions from Brandon Hyde, featured 4 1/3 scoreless innings from the bullpen behind Cole Irvin.
Baltimore’s skipper called upon Craig Kimbrel to pitch the seventh inning with the team holding a one-run lead. Kimbrel retired Blaze Alexander, Kevin Newman and Ketel Marte in order. Jacob Webb, Cionel Pérez and Yennier Cano followed in relief to secure the victory.
It’s the first time this season that Kimbrel has entered a game before the ninth inning. The nine-time All-Star has hit a rough patch of late, failing to finish off save opportunities against the Reds and Nationals in his previous two appearances. After the game, Hyde demurred when asked whether Kimbrel was being pulled from the closer job. The manager said Kimbrel’s role is “day to day” and that he hoped to get the scuffling right-hander a different look this evening (X link via Matt Weyrich of the Baltimore Sun).
Even if the O’s decide to move away from Kimbrel as a full-time closer, he’s clearly still among their most important relievers. Protecting a one-run lead in the seventh is a high-leverage spot — although it did come against the 8-9-1 hitters in the Arizona batting order. Webb and Cano have arguably been Baltimore’s two best relievers this year, so they’re probably better suited than Kimbrel to take on the middle of an opponent’s lineup.
The O’s signed Kimbrel to a $13MM free agent deal with the hope that he’d solidify the ninth after Félix Bautista’s Tommy John procedure. Kimbrel has technically gone 8-11 in save opportunities, but his two previous appearances — in which he didn’t complete the ninth inning but was pulled before the O’s relinquished the lead — aren’t considered blown saves. Kimbrel had only successfully locked down the game in one of his last five tries.
Including tonight’s performance, he owns a 4.40 ERA through 14 1/3 innings. Kimbrel has punched out 22 of 62 batters faced (an excellent 35.5% rate) but he has also walked nearly 15% of his opponents. He’d walked between 10 and 11% of hitters in each of the previous two seasons with the Dodgers and Phillies. While Kimbrel had a couple rough outings in the postseason with Philadelphia, he went 23-28 on save opportunities with a 3.26 ERA during the regular season last year.
Hyde could take a broadly flexible approach to the entire pitching staff. Beyond potentially shuffling the high-leverage bullpen roles, he told reporters before tonight’s game that the team would consider moving to a six-man rotation when the schedule necessitates (relayed on X by Roch Kubatko of MASNsports.com). Baltimore is off next Thursday before playing 14 straight through May 30. The following month is particularly grueling, as the O’s only have one day off in June (on 6/17).
Baltimore is currently operating with a five-man staff comprising Corbin Burnes, Kyle Bradish, John Means, Dean Kremer and Irvin. Right-handers Grayson Rodriguez and Tyler Wells are on the 15-day injured list. Rodriguez doesn’t seem far off from returning and will surely step back into the MLB rotation when healthy. With Irvin and Kremer pitching very well of late, there’s sense in moving to a six-man staff when Rodriguez is back given the upcoming heavy schedule.
good first step to getting CK back on track. fans way too overreactive, but I think Hydes’ plan to get him some confidence is a good move. same fans were ready to DFA Irvin. chill.
overreactive?!? hell, no! the article doesn’t mention his handing the A’s two games. he’s been completely unreliable
you’re 100% right. we should draw and quarter him.
Oh come on. Tarring and feathering will be more than sufficient. Kimbrel has been terrible. That doesn’t mean he’s going to continue to be terrible. I like this move by Hyde. When Kimbrel failed in the ninth, more times than not, the best relievers had already pitched. This way, if he gets in trouble, the stable behind him is full.
fans are too fast to give up on players, slow to admit that they are being rash and never admit being flat out wrong.
we sit in our armchairs and pass judgment on guys. (I’m guilty as anyone)
CK had a good game tonight. I’m not ready to call him Mo Rivera but it was a good step. hopefully, he has seen something in his tape to see what was going wrong mechanically and fix it. I don’t believe he’s fixed from a single positive inning but I was more happy to Hyde willing to insert him in the 7th instead of doggedly cementing him in the 9th regardless of his results.
Shameful that mlb hasn’t had the All Star Game at Camden Yards in 32 years
That’s not solely MLB’s decision. Team ownership must volunteer and request to host an ASG.
The Mets went 49 years without hosting one, from Shea Stadium’s inaugural year in 1964 until 2013. Ownership intentionally waited to volunteer until after Citi Field opened.
So your gripe is with Orioles’ ownership, not MLB.
No it’s mlb as os have been looking for it. The Nats os issues at masn have made mlb grouchy towards the os
It’s because Angelos refused to play replacement players in ‘95.
Thankfully.
it was 3 1/3 scoreless innings from the pen, not 4 1/3. C’mon…
The Orioles are annoyingly talented. The Kimbrel signing looks ugly but it doesn’t matter much the rest of the team is so good. The Cardinals might be willing to trade Helsley but I don’t see much that the Cardinals would want besides Mayo and I don’t think the Cardinals have enough to get Mayo. Kittredge could be available for a lot less.
Kittredge sucks….No thanks.
No……he doesnt………
Kittredge for Fabian. That sounds fair.
Kittredge is quite good. Honestly one of the more underrated RP in the game.
The Orioles wouldn’t trade Mayo for Mason Miller much less Helsley. The Cardinals aren’t stupid enough to only want Mayo from the O’s for him.
The Cardinals don’t have to trade Helsley and won’t unless it makes sense. The Orioles have guys like Beavers and Bradfield but the Cardinals don’t really need those guys. Like I said I don’t see how a deal for Mayo makes sense. And no I wouldn’t trade Mayo for Miller either.
Wow, Kimbrel has stunk? Who would have guessed!
The whole “saves” statistic is kind of a detriment to baseball late inning bullpen use. If it’s the 7th or 8th inning in a one-run game and the other team has guys on base, I probably want to bring in my BEST relief pitcher to protect the lead in that situation.
Especially if it’s the middle of the order.
Then let a guy who would be your 7th or 8th inning guy in today’s game close it out in the 9th versus your 7-8-9 hitters.
That makes sense logically but with the save statistic it blows common sense strategy out of the water.
Of course I’m not the first to suggest this but I Champion it.
But pitchers seem to pitch their best when they have given roles and routines. You see it so often a guy comes in at a different time than expected and fails. That doesn’t mean your best pitcher has to be your closer. Your closer is your closer, whoever is most comfortable in the 9th inning.
Yes valid points. Absolutely. Same thing with guys and batting order. It’s hard to jerk a guy around batting 2nd, batting 5th, whatever but is it about the player or is it about the team?
I see what you’re saying but the best relief picture has to know he’s going to be used in the most important situations in either the 7th, 8th or 9th innings. It’s too bad baseball doesn’t look at it that way.
Used to be that guys like Rollie Fingers, Gene Garber, Rich Gossage, Sparky Lyle, Mike Marshall, Tug McGraw, Dan Quisenberry, Bruce Sutter, and Kent Tekulve would enter in the seventh inning with runners on and close it out from there.
Of course that was also when starters actually pitched complete games.
Kimbrel has looked a lot different pitching on a day or two rest compared with pitching back to back games. Seems like he needs a day or two to recover after every outing.
Most relievers do. Mo blew back to back games at Fenway in the 2004 choke-a-thon. And he’s a unanimous first ballot Hall of Famer.
Then there’s the 2001 Mo-Blow where they used him 2 innings in game 5 and made him come back in game 7 for over an inning. But he is the first unanimous first ballot Hall of Famer.
Kimberly has sucked for at least the last three seasons before this year. He completely fell apart when the White Sox had him pitch the 7 or 8 inning. (yet another stupid move by the Sox since they already had Hendriks as their closer). He was left off the LAD PO roster the next year, and the Phillies didn’t keep him after last year. He’s past it. Time to hang up the glove.
That Kimberly person is almost as inconsistent as Kimbrel.
Kimberly?
Kimbrel should be a teammate of Wild Thing Vaughan in the California Penal League because he is stealing money in his last two contracts