McAdam: Bullpen a mixed bag in Red Sox win

It's a commonly accepted theory in baseball that bullpen performance can be totally volatile.

Usually, that applies from one season to the next. But in the Red Sox' 8-5 win over the Baltimore Orioles, it was more inning-to-inning.

After swingman Hector Velazquez provided only three innings at Camden Yards, the Red Sox were forced to begin a parade of relievers in the fourth inning for the second night in a row, never a good sign.

First came Marcus Walden, who's been something of a revelation this season. Walden came into the game having been unscored upon over his previous seven appearances, allowing just four hits over his last 9.1 innings pitched with nine strikeouts and a single walk.

Walden was mostly solid, retiring nine of 11 hitters he faced, though not before yielding a game-tying homer to Hanser Alberto, the third batter he faced.

Still, Walden provided three invaluable innings from the fourth through the sixth and helped to stabilize the game to the point where the Sox could re-take the lead and then turn the game over to their high-leverage guys. Given where the Sox were, a three-inning, one-run outing was perfectly welcome.



Walden's emergence this season at 30, with exactly seven games of major league appearance before this year, has invited comparisons to Ryan Brasier, who seemingly came out of nowhere last year to become one of the team's three most-trusted relievers over the second half.

Indeed, the success enjoyed by Brasier was a factor in their decision to not spend for any established bullpen help in a crowded free agent market last winter.

Unofficially, the Red Sox thinking went thusly: if we can stumble upon a 29-year-old journeyman who begged us to come watch him throw last February, then surely, we can find similar guys to fill out the bullpen in 2019.

To date, it's worked out. Walden has put up zeroes in 14 of his 16 appearances this year, and the Sox have overseen his transition as a low-leverage, mop-up guy last season to a multi-inning middle man this season. Walden, utilizing a pitch mix of mostly cutters and sliders, has responded to the challenge. His velocity has played up (he now throws his four-seamer at 95 mph or above) and has shown an ability to provide the team with some important length, a key component especially now that the club is without 40 percent of its starting rotation.

So, in their quest to find the "new Ryan Brasier,'' the Red Sox appear to have succeeded, thus partly validating the guiding principle behind the team's inactive winter.

There's just one problem. Now that the Sox have found the new Brasier, it would be nice to find the old one while they're at it. Because the Ryan Brasier of 2019 only slightly resembles the one who flourished with the Sox in 2018.

Last month, he flushed away a lead in the seventh inning when he gave up a grand slam to Brett Gardner in Yankee Stadium. Then, in the first game of the current road trip, after an error by Rafael Devers, he was tagged for a three-run homer by light-hitting Nicky Delmonico of the Chicago White Sox, leading to a crushing walk-off loss.

And Tuesday night wasn't any improvement.

The Sox led 6-3 heading into the bottom of the eighth. For much of the year, Alex Cora has used Matt Barnes as his premier high-leverage reliever, tasked with getting the toughest three outs over the final two innings. The Orioles had the top of their order due in the eighth, but apparently, Cora was more concerned with the middle three in the Baltimore lineup and was keeping Barnes back for the ninth.

Brasier got the leadoff man for the first out, but things quickly unraveled from there. Trey Mancini singled to center and Dwight Smith Jr. followed by ripping a double over the first base bag, scoring Mancini from first, putting Smith on second and bringing Chris Davis to the plate.

Davis's single to center scored Smith, pulling the Orioles to within a run with the potential tying run on first.

That was it for Brasier, as Cora turned to Barnes an out ahead of schedule. Barnes fanned Steve Wilkerson to strand Davis, then turned back the Orioles in the ninth for the save.

It all ended well enough for the Sox. But Brasier's 3.68 ERA speaks to a potential issue in the late innings. Twice, he's coughed up leads and he seemed well on his way to doing it again Tuesday before Barnes intervened.

Through almost a quarter of the schedule, the decision to allow Joe Kelly and Craig Kimbrel walk and not replace them hasn't cost the Red Sox.

But it's also served as a pointed reminder that relievers are up one year and down the next and little can be taken for granted.