Let’s start off by acknowledging how great Putz has been over the last two seasons. He’s been lights out for the majority of his time with the Diamondbacks despite a couple of rough patches. This April was one such rough patch. He’s gotten off to slow starts before and has seemingly always got rolling as the season progresses.

Perhaps JJ was about to turn it around, but we can’t ignore the fact that he’s 36 and has thrown a lot of

splitters. Those have been known to put heavy pressure on the elbow and the splitter has long been deemed one of baseball’s most unsafe pitches. In fact, some organizations even refuse to teach it to their minor leaguers.

JJ Putz leaves the game against the Dodgers. IMAGE: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports

Now that JJ has been diagnosed with “elbow tightness,” we have to wonder if the innings, the age and all those splitters have come back to take their toll. As Ken Rosenthal reported this morning, Putz has a sprained ligament, strained flexor muscle and an irritated nerve in that elbow. Apparently Putz will try to rehab his way back into the lineup, but it appears that surgery is looming should the rehab prove ineffective. In other words, JJ’s future as a Diamondback is in serious jeopardy and we shouldn’t assume we’ll ever see him regain his form again. Could he come back the same? Maybe, but at his age and given the severity of the injury, I’m not betting on it.

Enter Heath Bell. I, for one, did a lot of head scratching when Arizona acquired him from Miami. I was critical of Kevin Towers for taking on Bell’s contract given his age and ineffectiveness. Heath had lost velocity and his strikeout rates were were trending down, plus he didn’t have Petco Park to suppress run scoring. As we all know, the ball can fly in the desert, much more so than in his golden days with the Padres.

Bell has looked better in the desert thus far, though,  especially compared to his time as a Marlin. His velocity is slightly up, the strikeouts are way up and, most importantly, the walks are way down. His 4.40 ERA is misleading as he’s been unlucky thus far (.417 BABIP) and his FIP of 2.64 reflects this. I’d expect the his K/9 to fall a little bit and his BB/9 to rise some, but even with a little regression, he still appears to be capable of being effective as a closer.

To dig a little deeper, let’s take a look at the projections of both players going forward. Here are the ZiPS Rest of Season (ROS) projections for both pitchers: 

As you can see, the projections see them as different pitchers, but both are on the same path in terms of value. Putz and Bell would be set to accumulate 0.6 WAR over the rest of the season, they would just do so in different ways. Putz boasts a better K/BB ratio, but Bell is better at keeping the ball in the yard. Both have similar career groundball rates and both have experience closing out games. If Bell can keep his head and avoid getting rattled if and when he blows a save, there is reason to believe that we should see no major drop-off in the ninth.

Heath Bell notches a save for the Dbacks. IMAGE: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

There’s been some clamoring for David Hernandez to become the closer, but Gibby clearly prefers a veteran in that role. Hernandez is likely the future, but Bell should be able to keep him from taking over this season. The bullpen is old overall and there is sure to be a changing of the guard in the near future, as neither Bell nor Putz are long-term solutions at this point in their careers.

For now, however, we’re going to have to roll the dice with Heath Bell, but there’s hope that he can keep the Dbacks in the thick of the NL West race.

The bulk of the struggles have largely been limited to those in high-leverage situations, notably JJ Putz and David Hernandez. I was curious to know if these guys were failing to perform like they have in the past or whether this was just a blip on the radar that could be attributed to bad luck and small sample sizes. I wanted to know if this was something that we should be concerned about or whether we could reasonably expect this difficult stretch to pass. After all, they wouldn’t be the first major league pitchers to get off to a slow start, right?

Digging through their performances, pitch-by-pitch, a few things jumped out at me. We’ll take a look at both Putz and Hernandez individually to see just how they’ve been getting exposed.

Arizona Diamondbacks relief pitcher J.J. Putz. IMAGE: Ed Szczepanski – USA Today Sports

It’s no secret that JJ has been excellent for the Dbacks over the last two seasons. He’s built that success largely by doing three things: striking out a lot of batters, issuing very few walks and limiting the number of homeruns he’s allowed. In 2013, he’s still recording a lot of strikeouts (12.8 K/9) but the walks are killing him. He hasn’t posted a walk rate like his current one (4.97 BB/9) since 2009 with the Mets. He’s walked less than two batters per nine innings in each of the last two years, so this current spike is unexpected. Making matters worse, JJ has already surrendered three homeruns through 12.2 innings in 2013 after allowing only four all of last year (54.1 IP) and only four in 2011 (58 IP). If there’s anything we know about pitching, it’s that walks and homeruns are a good recipe for disaster. So far, JJ is way above his norms in both categories.

What’s leading to these issues? Looking at Pitch F/X data, it’s clear that his velocity is down throughout his arsenal. We don’t know if this is simply a matter of him building up early season arm strength or if he simply is losing velocity. At 36-years old, a drop in velocity wouldn’t be surprising. He’s also altered his offerings to hitters, throwing his fastball less often and using his slider more. The slider has been simply average so far and his fastball hasn’t been nearly as effective as usual. But Putz is most notable for his splitter. When he commands the hammer, it’s lights out for hitters. Unfortunately, the splitter is notorious for being one of the most difficult pitches to command in baseball. So far, JJ is having trouble with the pitch and it’s getting crushed. Because of his struggles with throwing consistent strikes, hitters are taking more and chasing less, forcing him to come over the plate and risk getting hit hard. And that’s just what’s happened.

David Hernandez’ struggles have also seemingly come out of nowhere. His recipe for success in the past has been high strikeout rates and not giving up the long ball. Never a control artist, Hernandez is currently right on par with his career walk rate (3.95 BB/9), but his strikeouts are down from last year. More importantly, he’s been burned by the homerun, as opponents have already put four offerings over the fence this year (13.2 IP). He allowed only four dingers in each of the last two years, so his current homerun rate is surprising. Given his propensity to walk hitters, the homeruns are painful. For example, on May 1^st, he entered the 8^th inning protecting a one-run lead. Hernandez walked two hitters before giving up his latest long ball, a three-run heart-breaker that gave the rival Giants a lead they wouldn’t surrender.

Arizona Diamondbacks relief pitcher David Hernandez. IMAGE: Ed Szczepanski – USA Today Sports

So where has David strayed? Why is this happening now? Like Putz, Hernandez has altered his repertoire. He’s throwing his two-seamer 30% more often than last season. This has largely come at the expense of his four-seam fastball, which he’s using 40% less than in 2012. What’s behind this shift is unclear, but it’s not working as his two-seamer is getting hit hard and has been costing him dearly. David’s curveball, his best offering last year, has also been far less effective in 2013. On the bright side, his changeup has improved but without fastball success, the changeup’s usefulness is limited. Like JJ, batters are taking more and chasing less since Hernandez is struggling and hitters know it. They are taking advantage of the situation by forcing David to throw strikes and jumping on hittable pitches.

I wanted to be able to blame the poor results of the back-end of the bullpen on bad luck. Unfortunately, the BABIP of both JJ and David are right in line with their career averages, showing that we can’t just hope for regression to the mean. Instead, there is some puzzling information within just how they are pitching. Will JJ’s velocity pick back up? Can he command the splitter and get it back on track as one of the game’s premier put-away pitches? Will David either get his two-seam fastball under control or start using it less? What about his curve? Can both of these guys find a way to keep the ball in the yard?

The Dbacks season rests in their hands and given the competitive nature of the division, there are sure to be a ton of close games as the season wears on.  Can they rise to the occasion and iron out their issues? We certainly hope so.

Contrarily, the D’backs (15-13) are coming off being swept at the hands of the Giants, thanks in large part to the bullpen, who accounted for all three losses. Brad Ziegler picked up the loss on Monday, J.J. Putz on Tuesday and David Hernandez on Wednesday. It was an all-around rough series for the pen, adding to the now 10 blown saves on the season. The interesting part, though, is that the D’backs’ pen still owns a 3.08 ERA on the season, good enough for 11th-best in the league. The runs they have given up have come in the worst time of the game it seems. Law of averages say that would turn around at some point, but who knows when.

In the series with the Friars, the D’backs probably have their three best guys on the hill to try to give the pen a break and get back on track.

This will be the first series of the year between the Pads and the Snakes. The Friars got the best of the D’backs in 2012, though, winning 11-of-18.

Game 1 (Friday): Wade Miley (2-0, 2.37 ERA) vs. Jason Marquis (2-2, 4.20 ERA)

Miley is coming off, by far, his worst start of the season. It was also the only start that Miley did not allow a single run. Miley walked seven guys in only 4.1 innings against the Rockies on April 27. That doubled his season total in walks allowed – he had walked only seven in his four previous starts. Miraculously, Miley did not allow any of those seven walks to score, mostly due to three ground-ball double plays the infield turned. Miley will be all out of miracles if he repeats that performance. Marquis also only has one really poor start on the season. Unfortuantely for him, that bad start resulted in seven more runs scoring than Mileys. Marquis allowed seven in only 4.2 innings against the Brewers on April 22. Outsides of that, Marquis has been solid for the Padres.

Game 2 (Saturday): Patrick Corbin (3-0, 1.91) vs. Clayton Richard (0-3, 7.94)

Corbin has been a revelation this season. I’ve written about him several times this season and there’s not much more I can say. He’s been superb and there’s nothing to suggest he won’t keep it up. Obviously, he won’t have a 1.91 ERA all season long, and his HR/FB rate is unsustainable at 2.1 percent, but even if it regresses to last year’s number of eight percent, Corbin will be just fine. And that rate probably won’t make a big jump in this start in Petco, even with their fences moved in. On the flip side, Richard has been hit hard and often so far this season. He’s had one good start, a shutout six-inning affair against the Rockies on April 14. In his last appearance he was knocked around for five runs in five innings against the Cubs on April 29.

Game 3 (Sunday): Ian Kennedy (1-2, 4.78) vs. Edinson Volquez (2-3, 6.39)

Unfortunately for the D’backs, this is probably the type of pitcher they can expect from Kennedy now. All of his peripherals show that Kennedy is prone to give up a lot of fly balls, and in Chase Field, many times those fly balls fly on out, including in his last start against the Giants on April 29, where he gave up four runs in seven innings. In addition, this year, his walk rate has increased while his strikeout rate has decreased. That’s not a good sign for a pitcher with fringy stuff to begin with. However, Kennedy is also better than his 4.78 ERA so far. Expect him to get much closer to 4 soon, and an outing at pitcher friendly Petco may just be the start he needs. Volquez, like Richard, has only had one good start this season. He threw seven shutout innings on April 24 against the Brewers, striking out three and only allowing five hits. However, in his last start, he gave up four runs in only 5.2 innings against the Cubs.