It takes a village to raise a child, especially if its primary caretakers lack the confidence or even just general ability to do their part.
For the Colorado Rockies, it’s going to take their whole bullpen to preserve leads and keep games close to deliver a playoff berth in Denver. The money given to Wade Davis, Bryan Shaw and Jake McGee all but officially assigned them the roles of the main protectors, but they’ve more than needed help.
Adam Ottavino has obviously stepped up, but he can’t salvage this alone. Without the supplementary pieces doing their job, the Rockies don’t leave their recent four-game series against the Los Angeles Dodgers with three pivotal victories.
Sure, the relief corps imploded in game one. But Ryan McMahon’s go-ahead home run doesn’t happen without the heroics of Harrison Musgrave, McGee and Scott Oberg, who quelled a Dodgers offense that put up four runs in five innings before they combined for 2.1 shutout frames.
“That was awesome because I think that can really show what we’re capable of,” Oberg told BSN Denver following the game. “It can basically be anybody. Jake [McGee] threw the ball well. Musgrave threw the ball well. We’re going to need everybody down the stretch here, making a playoff run.”
Oberg came in with the tying run on second base and two outs in the eighth to face Yasiel Puig. Oberg wasn’t supposed to be the guy for these late, high-leverage situations. Yet, he got Puig to bounce out easily to shortstop Trevor Story, preserving the lead for Ottavino to seal in the ninth and bailing out McGee, who was also in an unfamiliar situation, having thrown 1.2 innings before being relieved.
It was the sixth time this year he was asked to get more than three outs, where he was supposed to be the one-inning shutdown guy to get to the ninth. Furthermore, Musgrave was called on to get one out in a left-on-left situation (BSN Denver profiled him here), but has been used for long relief in the past.
The Rockies bullpen has had to adapt to succeed. And while it is still a work in progress, this game is a fantastic case study for what it’ll take to stay afloat: jury-rigging the pieces available to bridge the gap to Ottavino and a hopefully rebounding Davis in the ninth. They brought in Seunghwan Oh to help stabilize that process, but Oberg could end up being just as important.
Pitching to a 3.12 ERA and 1.24 WHIP to this point in the season, Oberg has already been a much-needed asset. He did allow two inherited runners to score in game four but reduced the damage with a strikeout to end the inning.
With his fastball-slider combo, Oberg will need to be the big stuff pitcher in the middle innings down the stretch. In the Puig at-bat, he got a swing and a miss on the slider on the first pitch, setting the tone. Following two more breaking pitches with fastballs that ratcheted up to 97.5 mph did the trick. That slider might be the key to keeping the pace, and his faith in the pitch has grown.
“It was more confidence in my slider than scouting reports or anything like that,” he said. “Since I’ve started throwing it, it’s really come along. It’s really developed. It’s a pitch I feel really confident in, I can throw down and away, any count, behind, ahead, first pitch, three-two. Whatever the situation is, I have a lot of confidence I can throw it whenever to whoever.”
Much like Ottavino behind him, the slider is becoming more and more essential. So far in August, Oberg’s thrown it 42 percent of the time, the second highest single month rate in his career, behind April of this year. But his ability to dial up his velocity in key situations could make him a useful high leverage piece as well.
“I knew that was an important game for us. Tough loss yesterday, battled back today. Mac hit the big homer, Jake threw the ball really well, Jonny battled his ass off. From there, I was like, ‘Alright, I’ve got to do my part, contribute and give it everything I got.’ Once I got to two strikes, I let it go, giving it everything I got. Emptying the tank.”
As the season’s end gets closer and closer, everyone’s tanks will have dwindling capacities. Fatigue is inevitable, especially for a bullpen that has been so sporadic that everyone has gotten overworked. For the Rockies to sustain success, they’ll need contributions from everyone, not just the A-list arms. Scott Oberg, the guy making a whopping three percent of Davis’s salary, is going to play a huge role in the team’s overall standing come playoff time.
