The Washington Nationals have a bullpen problem. That much is obvious for anyone who has watched a full game of the team this season. Not only does the club have the highest bullpen ERA in the league by a wide margin, but the team also currently employs probably the two worst relievers in baseball in Lucas Sims and Colin Poche.
As for how dire the situation has gotten for the 2 of them, Poche entered Tuesday's 7-0 shutout victory in the 9th inning with a massive cushion, hoping to gain some confidence in low leverage work, and only retired 1 of 3 batters, walking the other 2. Davey Martinez would have to get him out of the game and bring in rookie righty Cole Henry to finish the game, who promptly struck out the 2 batters he faced to end it. The fact that 3 pitchers had to be used in a game where you win by 7 and your starting pitcher throws 8 shutout innings is genuinely laughable, and goes to show how bad Poche has been.
The sad part was that, even in a 7-0 game, Nationals closer Kyle Finnegan had to begin to get loose out in the bullpen just in case things turned ugly quickly, which Poche was doing his best to do in his short appearance. While nothing will ever beat Saturday's legendarily awful performance from the dynamic duo of Sims and Poche, when they retired 2 batters combined while allowing 2 walks, 2 hits, and 6 earned runs, allowing the Rockies to creep back into what should have been a blowout, Tuesday was another reminder that neither of them can be trusted in any situation whatsoever right now.
Fortunately, with Michael Soroka set to rejoin the rotation soon, perhaps a reshuffling of the bullpen could be in order. Here's how the team can fix their struggling bullpen on the fly with just a few roster moves.
1. Reinstate Michael Soroka from the 15-day IL, DFA RHP Lucas Sims
This would kill a couple birds with one stone. Soroka would take his place back in the rotation, while righty Brad Lord would likely slide back into the bullpen, allowing the team to rid themselves from the failed Lucas Sims experiment once and for all.
Personally, I would love to see Lord stay in the rotation with Trevor Williams move into a swingman type of role out of the bullpen, but that won't happen. Lord, everyone's favorite former Home Depot employee, has proven to be serviceable at the big league level, and at the very least, he's not Lucas Sims. With Sims off the 40-man roster, it would allow a 40-man spot to open up for my next move..
2. Add LHP Konnor Pilkington to the 40-man roster, DFA LHP Colin Poche
The open 40-man spot would go to lefty Konnor Pilkington, who was an offseason addition that has been down in AAA so far this season. He has appeared in 7 games for Rochester, pitching in 12.0 innings with a 3.00 ERA and 1.00 WHIP so far this season. Additionally, he has also struck out an impressive 21 batters so far, with his last 2 appearances being starts where he threw a few more innings than usual.
He is 27-years-old and has big league experience during his time in the Cleveland organization, and he surely can't be any worse than Poche right now. I would be more than willing to give Pilkington a look at the big league level to see if he can step up and earn a shot to be Davey's lefty out of the bullpen in the middle innings.
This would spell the end of Poche's tumultuous tenure in DC, and he could be DFA'd and likely would not be claimed, and could choose to refuse an assignment to Rochester if he wanted, but that seems unlikely right now, given how much he has struggled.
There would be no active need to replace his spot on the 40-man roster, and Mike Rizzo could scour the waiver wire for guys that might come available. Keep in mind, Rizzo has been able to find solid players such as Alex Call, Robert Garcia, and Joe La Sorsa off waivers in the past. With talented guys like Triston McKenzie hitting the wire, perhaps he could take a chance on a guy sometime soon.
Would you be open to giving Konnor Pilkington a look? As always, please let me know on X, @DCBerk.