I watched the last few innings of the Cubs game against the Nationals on MLB Network Tuesday night. Almost all the discussion I heard was about the Nationals bullpen. The crew pointed out that Nationals window for winning was small because of all the free agents leaving in the next few years (as if they cannot ever be signed or replaced), and that the Nationals owed it to the players and fans to fix the bullpen. Yet, as I watched Max Scherzer pulled after six innings, each reliever that entered the game seemed to have a lot going for them. All appeared to have decent strikeout numbers and good walk totals. Blake Treinen was the worst, but his ERA appears to be a bit higher than his three-true outcomes would indicate. The group proceeded to pitch three hitless innings with one walk and one strikeout, without allowing a run.

Relief pitchers individually are extremely susceptible to luck, good and bad. It takes a lot of will power for a manager and a GM to keep trotting out the same relievers, to resist calls for change. Sometimes, it takes a while to figure out the right roles for pitchers. Maybe when a team is 13 1/2 games up in their division, the bullpen isn’t as much of a problem as it appears.

I know, you can’t win in the post season without a good bullpen. But you can’t win in the post season without good offense or good starting pitching either. Of the three, the bullpen would be the least of my worries.