Reliever Kevin Ginkel was dropped into a tight spot on Friday night. Nobody out, the potential tying and go-ahead runs on base, the heart of the order due up for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Ginkel proceeded to plow through the next three batters, extinguishing the threat and helping the Diamondbacks eke out a 4-3, series-opening victory at Chase Field. It was an outing that felt apropos given the events of the previous 24 hours.
On Thursday evening, the Diamondbacks landed reliever A.J. Puk in a deal with the Miami Marlins. Puk is left-handed. He has a mid-90s fastball and a wipeout slider. For the past three months, he has been a dominant relief force, just like he was for much of the past two seasons.
Puk, in short, makes a good Diamondbacks bullpen even better. The unit was already one of the stronger facets of the team. It now might be the strongest.
And, on paper, this bullpen has a chance to be the best collection of late-inning arms in franchise history.
When Puk is added to the active roster on Saturday, as expected, the club will have as many as six relievers that manager Torey Lovullo can reliably call upon to protect a lead in the late innings. For an organization that has rarely had more than two or three pitchers at a time who fit that description, it’s a startling development.
“It’s great,” Diamondbacks right-hander Zac Gallen said of the Puk addition. “We can attack you in a lot of different ways, really. I know that having one lefty is tough, so now to add another lefty makes it tougher for teams to game plan for you, especially late in the game.”
The club’s primary late-inning arms all shined Friday. Ginkel got out the jam he inherited from Gallen in the seventh, striking out Andrew McCutchen and Oneil Cruz before getting Nick Gonzales to bounce out to end the inning.
Right-hander Ryan Thompson turned in a scoreless eighth before giving way to closer Paul Sewald, who worked around a two-out single by striking out Gonzales to end the game.
In addition to those three, there is also right-hander Justin Martinez, who has of the most electric stuff on the team, and left-hander Joe Mantiply, who has held left-handed hitters in check this year just like he had the previous two seasons.
And now there’s Puk, who hasn’t allowed an earned run over his past 14 appearances, striking out 25 and walking only three in 16 2/3 innings in that span.
“It just gives us a lot more depth in the bullpen,” Ginkel said. “Just watching him from afar, he’s got elite stuff.”
The bullpen helped carry the Diamondbacks through October last year. Does it deserve to be called the clear strength of the team?
The numbers don’t bear that out yet. The bullpen as a whole has a 4.21 ERA, a mark that ranks fourth-worst in the league. But the numbers look far better when looking only at the eight relievers expected to be in the bullpen come Saturday; they have a combined 2.81 ERA in relief this year.
“I just don’t know that we could say we have a weak link,” Thompson said. “We’re pretty solid from top to bottom. We have so many guys that can pitch in the highest of leverage and get the job done. It’s one of the best parts of our team, for sure, but we’re a pretty well-rounded team, too.”
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Arizona Diamondbacks bullpen locks down another win as Pirates fall in series opener
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