Dominating bullpen will make Braves tough come playoff time

Eric O'Flaherty is having a marvelous season at the front-end of an excellent Braves bullpen. (AP Photo/Barry Gutierrez)

The Atlanta Braves don’t have the most intimidating offense. Chipper Jones, who has said he will return for the 2012 season, has been solid. Brian McCann, Martin Prado, Michael Bourn, and rookie Freddie Freeman have as well, with Dan Uggla coming on strong over the past two months and Jose Constanza providing a spark.

Yet, despite the production of these seven players, the team is only 14th in runs and has just a .247 cumulative ERA. This hasn’t necessarily mattered. They are tied with the Milwaukee Brewers for the second-most wins in the National League, with 74 entering Saturday’s play.

How are they in this enviable position? Timely hitting, respectable starting pitching, and the best bullpen in baseball. The trio of relievers Eric O’Flaherty, Jonny Venters, and rookie Craig Kimbrel have shortened the game to six innings. They go the last three, and the opposition doesn’t have much of a chance.

The 26-year-old O’Flaherty, in his third year with the Braves, has allowed a grand total of eight earned runs in 56 2/3 innings, translating to a 1.27 ERA, the third-best mark among MLB relievers with a minimum of 40 innings pitched. After allowing a run in his first June outing, he went 23 1/3 innings spanning 26 appearances without relinquishing one. The 6’2″ lefthander has a lot of movement on his pitches, with a slider and sinking fastball dominating his repertoire.

Some pitchers can get by with one mastered pitch–as Mariano Rivera and his cut-fastball have shown–but more often than not to be successful a fastball and a few offspeed pitches must be thrown and thrown well. O’Flaherty, Venters, and Kimbrel all have multiple tricks up their sleeve.

Venters routintely hands the ball to Kimbrel with a save opportunity, pitching lights out for Atlanta. (AP Photo/Dave Einsel)

Venters and Kimbrel, 26 and 23 years old, have the life on their fastballs that make their offsetting offspeed pitches particularly devastating. The duo hasn’t allowed a run in 41 1/3 combined innings. Not one. And only one home-run has been allowed each this season.

Like O’Flaherty, their ERA’s are well below two, with Venters at a microscopic 1.13 and Kimbrel at 1.42. They are lights-out, and given their business-like, fierce mentalities, stuff, and superb placement of it, they should be similarly unhittable come playoff time.

Kimbrel, stocky with a high-90s fastball, is eerily reminiscent of the now retired Billy Wagner, a Brave as recent as last season and one of the greatest closers ever. Kimbrel has the same motion, the same powerful stride to the plate, the same speed, and the same demeanor. It is clear that Wagner took Kimbrel under his wing last season, and that Kimbrel let all of his tutelage sink in.

While Kimbrel is the second-coming of Wagner, Venters is performing as Rivera did in 1996 setting up John Wetland. Rivera finished third in the Cy Young voting that year, which is remarkable considering his role. His positioning in the race was well-deserved, as he allowed only 73 hits and 35 runs in 107 2/3 innings while striking out 130. Venters has an even better ratio in the hits and runs department, allowing just nine earned runs on 37 hits in 71 1/3 innings.

After O'Flaherty and Venters set him up, Kimbrel shuts the door on opponents. (AP Photo/Erik S. Lesser)

He has done this while proving to be the busiest reliever in baseball, having thrown the most innings and made the most appearances. He has also appeared in 25 games after taking the mound the day before.

“It’s just one of those things where you’ve got to go to the field every day, ready to pitch,” he told FoxSports.com’s Jon Morosi. “There are days when you don’t feel good, but you’ve got to be prepared to pitch, anyway. I like the workload. I feel like I can maintain my mechanics better the more that I pitch.”

Not many pitchers in this era would enjoy pitching as often as he does. He is a throwback, with an old-school arm and a ho-hum demeanor. And he doesn’t cool down as every other pitcher does.

Wrote Morosi:

"

The biggest surprise about Venters’ routine: He doesn’t use ice packs on his arm. At all.

“I don’t,” he said. “I think I’m the only one in the bullpen who doesn’t. Everybody ices but me. If I throw 25 pitches and maybe I’m a little tired or sore, ice doesn’t make my arm feel better. It would actually make my arm feel tighter. So, I’ll do work in the weight room instead.”

"

What a workhorse. They all are. They will throw when they are called upon, no matter how often manager Fredi Gonzalez needs them. That’s an amazing luxury to have. Not many teams in the relief pitching era have had so many dangerous arms. But will they show fatigue when they are needed most–in October? That remains to be seen, but I would doubt it. After all, they would probably be the first to say the offseason is for rest. And if they do indeed keep pitching at this sky-high level, the Braves will have an excellent chance at reaching and winning the World Series.