McAdam: After deal for one reliever collapses, Red Sox elect to stand pat with bullpen

As the Red Sox saw it, there were plenty of options on the reliever market in the last 48 hours.

They could have re-acquired Brad Ziegler from Miami, but passed, preferring to pursue power arms. They didn't have much interest in the handful of lefty specialists (like Aaron Loup).

The more they thought about it, the Red Sox, despite the struggles of a few members of their bullpen, believed they had better pitchers at hand.

One reliever, however, sorely tempted them.

According to a baseball source, the Red Sox and Washington Nationals had extensive talks Monday night about Kelvin Herrera. Herrera had already been traded once this season, going from Kansas City to Washington in mid-June, long before the trading season fully heated up.

But the Nationals' bid to insert themselves into the NL East race stalled, and for a time, the Nats seemed on their way to unloading Herrera, effectively waiving the white flag on their playoff chances.

Without acknowledging Herrera by name, Red Sox president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski said the deal which fell apart could have landed "one of the few guys that we put in that position that we thought would be an upgrade for us.''

At the last minute, however, the Nats pulled Herrera back, and the Red Sox were left with an uninspiring marketplace for the remaining available relievers.

"I know people keep talking about it and you can always have more bullpen pieces,'' said Dombrowski, "and there's no perfect club out there. But we think, realistically, that our bullpen's pretty good. And we think some of the improvements (we seek) can come from within. When you start taking a look at players outside the organization that were available, we think we have comparable cases internally — in most cases.

"We didn't think there was a significant upgrade. We had our hands involved in a lot of different things. We had conversations all over the place. We were watching everybody. There really was a combination of factors — some of them we didn't think (represented an) improvement; some of them, we didn't like the asking price for a couple of guys we did think were an improvement; thirdly, a couple of times, they went in another direction.''

Just recently, the Red Sox have been encouraged by the progress of Tyler Thornburg, first activated nearly a month ago, but only now looking like his old self after missing a season and a half with thoracic outlet syndrome. Thornburg's fastball has regularly been measured at 94-95 mph and his curveball has improved greatly over the past 10 days, since the Sox made a mechanical adjustment while the team was in Detroit.

"He's in a position where we think he's going to continue to get better,'' said Dombrowski. "Really, it would be hard to find a guy better than that at this point.''

Further, the work of journeyman Ryan Brasier has inspired confidence. In nine appearances, he's allowed just one run on five hits while holding opponents to a .147 batting average, thanks to a 99 mph fastball and a sharp breaking slider.

"We were thinking, 'Well, where are you going to get somebody better than him?' '' Dombrowski said. "We really couldn't find it.''

There's also Joe Kelly, who has been better of late, with two scoreless appearances in the past three games following a period in which his ERA ballooned to 9.98 for almost a two-month span.

Finally, there's the prospect of getting some injured starters back into the rotation to create a surplus and allowing some to perhaps shift into relief roles.

There are risks being taken here, of course. First, the Sox are assuming Thornburg will remain healthy and not suffer any physical setbacks, or that Brasier can maintain his current performance level, or that Kelly, against his career track record, can achieve some consistency.

And there's the matter of postseason experience. Brasier, obviously, has none, and neither does Thornburg, who previously pitched in Milwaukee. And while Kelly has pitched extensively in October (16 games between his stint in St. Louis and the last two Octobers in Boston), he has never served as the high-leverage weapon the Sox are seeking for the playoffs.

The beauty of Herrera is that he twice pitched deep into the postseason while with Kansas City, which won back-to-back pennants in 2014 and 2015.

It's possible that, should the Nationals continue to slip out of contention, they could make Herrera available in August. But for him to wind up in Boston, he would have to go unclaimed by 28 other teams -- waivers claims are made in inverse order of the standings, first in a player's own league and then the other, and the Red Sox currently have the game's best record — but that's a virtual impossibility, given the competitive nature of the standings.

So barring something unforeseen, this group of relievers is it. Time will tell how wise Dombrowski was to gamble on not upgrading the bullpen.