Majority of Nats bullpen has quietly been very effective

The story of Wednesday’s 1-0 victory surely was the performance of the Nationals pitching staff, which became the first to shut out the Dodgers lineup in nine months. And specifically the Nats bullpen, which tossed three scoreless innings with zero margin for error and wound up stranding runners on base in each of those frames, including in scoring position in both the eighth and ninth.

It served as a reminder what this bullpen is capable of doing, when given the opportunity to be used as intended all along.

“I’ve said it before: We get some starting pitching, we get deep – deep to me is somewhere in that sixth inning or so – and we got the lead, our bullpen can hold us down,” manager Davey Martinez said afterward. “Today was an example of that with a really good team and a really good lineup.”

Erick Fedde’s six strong innings allowed everything else to fall into place, with Carl Edwards Jr. taking over for the seventh, Kyle Finnegan for the eighth and Tanner Rainey for the ninth.

Truth be told, though, the bullpen’s performance didn’t come out of nowhere. This unit has been performing well all season, with a couple of notable exceptions.

Overall, Nationals relievers own a 4.11 ERA and 1.383 WHIP. Those numbers, on the surface, don’t look so good, with an ERA that ranks 21st in the majors and a WHIP that ranks 25th.

The numbers, though, are pretty significantly skewed by two of the least effective pitchers to take the mound this season. And one of them isn’t even a real pitcher.

Austin Voth has struggled mightily, there’s no getting around it. The 29-year-old now owns a 9.35 ERA and 2.135 WHIP in 18 appearances, having been rocked for 12 runs over his last 3 1/3 innings in total.

And then there’s utilityman Dee Strange-Gordon, whose April 12 pitching appearance in Atlanta provided some entertainment at the end of a blowout loss but didn’t help the team’s overall stats one bit.

Remove Voth and Strange-Gordon from the ledger, and would you believe the rest of the Nationals bullpen sports a 3.39 ERA and 1.277 WHIP? Those are legitimately solid numbers.

Six of the nine relievers on the current active roster boast an ERA under 3.50: Erasmo Ramirez (2.50), Paolo Espino (2.61), Edwards Jr. (2.79), Rainey (2.84), Finnegan (3.12) and Josh Rogers (3.48 as a reliever). Two others – Victor Arano (4.50) and Steve Cishek (5.06) – have higher ERAs but have better peripheral numbers and/or have been regularly used in high-leverage spots.

And this doesn’t take into account the dominant performances of Sean Doolittle and Hunter Harvey, each trying to come back from injuries after collectively throwing eight scoreless innings in April before landing on the IL.

Point is, there is some real depth and some viable options for Martinez when he has the ability to turn to his relievers late in a close game.

It does raise the question of Voth’s future, given how poorly he has pitched in comparison to his teammates. The right-hander is out of options, so he would have to be exposed to waivers before he could be demoted to the minors.

But at this point, the Nationals seem to have plenty of reliable options beyond Voth and perhaps don’t even need to carry a ninth reliever anymore now that starters are more consistently completing five or more innings. (Note: All MLB clubs are required to reduce the number of pitchers on their active rosters from 14 to 13 beginning Monday, so the Nats will need to swap one reliever for one position player.)

Forty-five games into the season, there has been little to get excited about with this team, which has won exactly one-third of its games so far. But at the moment, there isn’t a whole lot of reason to be dissatisfied with a bullpen that has performed far better than the stats appear on the surface.