CINCINNATI — The attention Friday night centered on Cincinnati’s gruesome bullpen after it chummed up seven runs over the final three innings as the Mariners rallied for an 8-3 victory.
Less obvious were the continuing changes within the Mariners’ bullpen, which entered Saturday with a 2.76 ERA and leading the American League in limiting opponents to a .196 batting average.
Three things stood out:
¦ Lefty Mike Montgomery got the call to start the seventh inning after the Mariners rallied for a 5-3 lead. Manager Scott Servais confirmed Montgomery would have been summoned had the game been tied.
Servais said Montgomery had “earned” the right to pitch in that situation.
¦ An inning later, with the Mariners leading 6-3 and Joaquin Benoit unavailable, Servais summoned Nick Vincent instead of Joel Peralta.
“(Vincent) does a nice job against righties,” Servais said. “He takes the sting out of the bat. He’s got nice movement off the barrel with his cut fastball and the slider.”
¦ When the ninth inning began, closer Steve Cishek began to heat up for an anticipated save situation. When homers by Nelson Cruz and Dae-Ho Lee expanded the lead to five runs, Cishek sat down. Peralta closed out the game.
Saturday saw more of the same. The Mariners closed out their 4-0 victory by using Vidal Nuno, Montgomery and Peralta after Felix Hernandez pitched six shutout innings.
While Servais continues to profess a mix-and-match approach for his bullpen beyond using Cishek as the closer, it seems clear he is adjusting his default preferences.
Vincent has a 1.47 ERA and is now the preferred match-up righty — they are batting .119 against him. He has also seemingly supplanted Peralta as the chief alternative to Benoit as the eighth-inning bridge to Cishek.
Peralta now appears ticketed to pitch more often in “hold-‘em” situations or when, like Friday and Saturday, the Mariners have a late lead beyond save-situation territory.
Montgomery is no longer pointed primarily toward low-leverage situations. If the upcoming inning projects to have multiple left-handed batters, he’s at the front of the line.
While Servais points to Nuno’s versatility, he more often fills the role of match-up lefty. That could change when/if Charlie Furbush returns from the disabled list to reclaim that role.
“There could be situations where we stretch (Nuno) out a little bit more,” Servais said. “He does have the ability to come in and get one lefty out. The versatility is really nice, knowing you can use him in a number of different roles.”
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