Jeff Blair

It happens because people are paying attention going, man, do you throw hard?

Why is nobody swinging and missing on that thing?

And then they found out why that was.

And now he's made that little mini adjustment, making those pitches competitive.

I don't want to say it's backwards, but you put it in the hitter's mind enough that I will throw a sinker to you if you're right-handed.

I will throw a slider off my sinker to you.

I will always throw my knuckle curve, and then I'm going to punch you out with 99 elevated because I've set that up to make the 90 line look that much harder.

It's genius.

So there are some real positives to what dudes are doing.

You know, all of a sudden, guys are starting to punch out a bunch of guys.

By and large, the bullpen's not been an issue for the most part.

Absolutely not.

I mean, you have hiccups, but as you point out, you have hiccups because they're pitching a lot of innings right now.

And, um, but they, by and large, they have been as we thought.

I mean, I think a lot of us thought going into the year that the, that the bullpen would be deeper, that, uh, it might be a little easier for John to match up.

You know, I think the main thing is having guys like Tyler Rogers and Louie Varland, you can use every day.

I think it makes John's job easier.

And then you kind of close your eyes and think, man, if they can just get Jimmy back.

And you know the thing with Jimmy is when he comes back, it doesn't matter what his velo is and when he's rehabbing or that.

He jacks it up when he gets into the game.