This week, the New York Yankees’ bullpen featuring the unnatural “three-headed monster” took home the bullpen of the week award.
By Christian Kouroupakis
Major League Baseball may have seen this monstrosity coming, but there was no chance they were going to prepare themselves for the back-end of the New York Yankees bullpen.
Sure, they were 10-0 coming into this week when leading after seven innings but this week they just flat out struck fear into the opposition thanks to the return of Aroldis Chapman.
The Cuban flamethrower returned to the Yankees after serving a 29-game suspension for an alleged domestic violence incident and brought exhilaration upon his return to the game of baseball.
Hitters who had to face Dellin Betances, Andrew Miller, and Aroldis Chapman this week had a better chance of winning the lottery than rallying off the three.
Overall this week, the Yankees ‘pen struck out 29 batters while allowing only 17 hits and five earned runs across 28.1 innings of work. The most dominating performance we saw was most likely Saturday afternoon, when “No-Run DMC” struck out eight of 11 batters faced in 3.1 innings pitched.
Last year’s 1-2 punch (Betances and Miller) have struck out 49% of batters faced as 47 of the 96 combined batters faced went down on strikes.
So far this season, Yankee relievers are fourth in the league with a .218 batting average against, have the second most strikeouts (134) and have given up the fifth-fewest runs in all of baseball.
This awards is a part of the “MLB Prevailing Moments Program,” according to Matt Kelly of MLB.com and the Yankees ‘pen scored 110.5 points in the Bullpen Rating System that decides which bullpen wins.
The Oakland Athletics, Minnesota Twins, Washington Nationals, and Philadelphia Phillies were the four previous winners.
Fans gear up. This is just the first week of the bullpen at full strength and the best is yet to come. You haven’t seen anything yet.
New back end of @Yankees ‘pen brings home @TheHartford Bullpen of the Week Award: https://t.co/UkNESwatKT pic.twitter.com/leoGevzIwL
— MLB (@MLB) May 16, 2016
NEXT: The New York Yankees Look Alive
