Los Angeles Dodgers: Why you shouldn’t worry about the bullpen

1. The stats are bad but misleading

Anyone that knows anything about baseball knows that a 6.84 ERA is absolutely horrendous; that is the ERA that the Los Angeles Dodgers currently boasts after six games.

Aside from it being a small sample size that is magnified since it is the start of the season, the Dodgers bullpen really has not been that bad if you take out a few key arms that might not even be around for the entire season.

The beginning of the season, with the bullpen especially, is about finding who is going to make the cut and who isn’t. About what each guys’ specific role is in the bullpen and maximizing that role for the rest of the year.

That is why Dave Roberts left Kelly out there in both outings in a “sink or swim” approach to figure out how he will play into the bullpen.

The Dodgers’ bullpen has allowed 19 earned runs thus far this year. However, those 19 runs are split between just four guys.

Brock Stewart has allowed five runs, Kelly six, Garcia four and Baez four (two of which were because of Kelly’s home run allowed).

There is reasonable chance to believe that both Stewart and Garcia will not be on this team in October and that this is serving as their last chance of sorts. That takes away nine earned runs right there.

Then, if you take away the meltdown that has been Joe Kelly (and the wild pitch that Russell Martin easily could have played in game two) then that is eight more earned runs off the board.

That leaves the Dodgers’ bullpen with just two earned runs. Kenley has looked sharp and got out of a jam on Tuesday, Caleb Ferguson has looked great, Dylan Floro has been exceptional and Scott Alexander is on par with last season.

Baez and Kelly will turn a corner and if not, this bullpen is deep enough to make adjustments.