Breaking down (limited) options as Bruce Bochy, Rangers attempt to piece together bullpen

MINNEAPOLIS — This is not the time of the season for doing the Bullpen Boogie, but here are the Rangers are nonetheless. Bruce Bochy is left with no other options but to once again shuffle around roles and hope for a hot stretch.

The latest dance card:

Aroldis Chapman will close

Will Smith may get a bit of a break.

José Leclerc will get another chance to pitch in big, late-inning moments. Chris Stratton, too. Josh Sborz: perhaps not so much.

And there may be other moves yet to come. Bruce Bochy, who has built a Hall of Fame managerial resumé largely built on bullpen deployment, isn’t done trying to solve perhaps the biggest puzzle in his 26 seasons of managing.

“We’ve had a lot of discussions this year,” Bochy said Friday of trying to figure out the bullpen. “And just when it seems you are getting things kind of figured out and in order, there is another hiccup. So, yeah, I think it’s fair to say it’s been [the biggest puzzle]. But that’s our job. That’s what we need to do. We need to do all we can to make them better. Because we are at the end of the season now. We all know how big every game is.

“Unfortunately, we’ve had a couple of guys on the back end of the bullpen going through some struggles. We will just try to give them a break and try different guys to help them out.”

Like, what else are they going to do? It may sound a bit like shuffling deck chairs on an iceberg-damaged ocean liner, but the other options probably involve burning sage.

The trade deadline has come and gone. Expanding the roster by three players is still a week away, though the Rangers have pretty much already run through the gamut of options there.

So here’s a run through what the Rangers can and might do:

Close with Aroldis Chapman: This seemed a foregone conclusion from the time the Rangers acquired Chapman on June 29. On Friday, nearly two months later, Bochy was the most definitive he’s been about the hazy situation. He said he will close with Chapman for the foreseeable future. Of course, he tried closing with Chapman Monday in Arizona. Chapman allowed a game-tying homer. It’s one of three blown saves in the last four games.

Give Will Smith a break: Metrics suggest there hasn’t been much difference with Will Smith’s fastball as the season has worn on. It’s a bit below average, but he’s gotten by with a sharp slider. Here’s the thing: With fatigue, the body movements slow down, it takes more effort to get through the pitching motion, the front side opens up a bit and sliders drift upwards. That is like a Kenny Loggins song: It’s a highway to the danger zone. Smith has proved exceptionally valuable for most of the year, but the Rangers may need to take some steps to help him get refreshed. In August, opponents are hitting .357 with almost all of the damage done by right-handers, against whom the flat slider is even more vulnerable.

Move Andrew Heaney to the bullpen: When Nathan Eovaldi is activated, which could be sometime in the next turn through the rotation, somebody is going to get bumped. Taking Smith out of high-leverage moments and moving Chapman to closer creates a need for a left-inning leverage reliever. There is some thought that if Heaney limits his repertoire to two pitches, it might improve his effectiveness for a turn through the order, a maximum of three innings. Batters are hitting .237 for the year against his fastball-slider combo; .288 against his changeup.

Changeup the leverage guys: In his previous managerial life, Bochy lived on late-inning moves, often using lefties for one-batter outings. During San Francisco’s three World Series runs, he averaged a one-batter appearance 83 times a season. With the three-batter minimum, a rule that was implemented during his hiatus, he no longer has that ability. The Rangers can’t look for individual platoon matchups but seek “pockets” for a pitcher to face hitters where he can make the most advantage of his platoon edge. Brock Burke was exceptional last year against lefties, but slightly less so this year. He’s struggled against right-handers. As such, his usage in high-leverage moments has gone down. He averaged entering with a 1.33 leverage index through mid-May, 0.73 since.

Bochy acknowledges that the three-batter minimum is a source of frustration for him. In Thursday’s loss, he had to replace struggling Josh Sborz, who may have seen his last high-leverage outing for a while and went to Will Smith against a lefty. Smith got a double-play on the first pitch but had to remain in the game to face a right-hander. Next batter, same pitch: A home run.

“There is no question I miss it; I’m not going to lie,” he said. “[Thursday] was a perfect situation for it. But it’s the game. It’s all about adjusting. There’s nothing you can do once you put them in.”

Call up Jonathan Hernández: Hernández has the stuff to be an effective late-inning reliver. You could however make a somewhat convincing argument, that all the bullpen trouble this season started with him in the first place. Trusted with high-leverage innings after an impressive spring training, he walked 11 in 21 innings before being optioned to Triple-A Round Rock in the first real bullpen shuffle of the year. Since the demotion, he’s put together an impressive 1.35 ERA in 26 innings. The walk numbers – 6.1 per nine innings – still raise some concern, but in August he’s struck out 14 and walked just four in 11.1 innings

The options are limited and so is time, but what’s become clear again in August is the Rangers must continue plugging in pieces to try to solve the biggest puzzle of Bochy’s career.

Twitter: @Evan_P_Grant

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