Washington Nationals: Nats Must Sign Craig Kimbrel to Contend

The Washington Nationals revamped bullpen did not work on Opening Weekend.  It is time to fix it by signing Craig Kimbrel.

The Washington Nationals still have one glaring weakness: The bullpen.

Three games into the season, the Nationals bullpen has pitched 7.1 innings and has allowed ten earned runs and 16 hits.

You don’t need to be a sabermetrician to deduce that is terrible.

Trevor Rosenthal, an offseason acquisition by Mike Rizzo, allowed all five of the batters he faced to record a hit.  His ERA remains at infinity after his outing on Sunday.

Tony Sipp, a left-handed specialist that the Nats acquired shortly before the season started, is already showing signs of inconsistency.

After pitching a scoreless inning in his debut appearance on Saturday, Sipp allowed two hits and two earned runs on Sunday.

The Nationals have not had a good bullpen in a long time.  Rizzo continually preaches the importance of good pitching to this team, and he raves about the starting pitching.

During an interview with MASN on the morning of Opening Day, Rizzo said, “We’re going to run a starting pitcher out there each and every night that’s giving us a chance to win on a daily basis.”

While that is true, everyone knows starting pitchers generally pitch two-thirds of a baseball game.

I’d sound like a broken record to Nationals fans, but the bullpen is as essential as the starting rotation, and the same amount of care, and money, has not been placed in the bullpen in the Rizzo era.

Enough is enough.

I’ve buried the lede long enough: As the Nationals are right now, this team not good enough to win the World Series solely because of the bullpen.

Do not wait until June to fix the bullpen.  Fix it now before more games are lost.

Sign Craig Kimbrel.  Sign Craig Kimbrel. Sign Craig Kimbrel.