This Reds reliever is unraveling when the team needs him most

It’s no secret that the Cincinnati Reds bullpen has been a bit streaky so far this season. While Emilio Pagán, Tony Santillian, and Brent Suter have been solid, the rest of the Reds bullpen hasn’t had a ton of success thanks to both injury and inefficiency. 

Though there are plenty of players who can be tied to that lack of success, Lyon Richardson stands out as a tangible example of how those shortcomings could come back to bite the Reds later in the season. 

Early in the season, the Reds bullpen benefited from great play from Graham Ashcraft, who ended April with a 0.71 ERA across 12 ⅔ innings. That ended up being the high point of Ashcraft’s season so far. After throwing three scoreless innings against the St. Louis Cardinals on May 1, Ashcraft posted a 7.23 ERA across his next 18 ⅔ innings before hitting the injured list, which put more pressure on Richardson’s shoulders.

Reds reliever Lyon Richardson has struggled since Graham Ashcraft hit the injured list

Richardson posted a 1.06 ERA across his first 17 innings on the year while working mostly in games that had already been decided. While most of his results came in blowouts, it was a string of dominance that Reds manager Terry Francona couldn’t ignore. So, when Ashcraft went down, Richardson was the natural option to take over that high-leverage role. 

It hasn’t gone according to plan, as Richardson has posted a 9.43 ERA in the 5 ⅔ innings he’s worked since Ashcraft went down with his injury. All but one of his appearances over that span came in the sixth inning or later.

It’s clear that Richardson is not the right guy to handle high-leverage opportunities, but the Reds keep rolling him out there in large part due to the lack of success from anyone else on their roster. As mentioned above, Pagán, Santillian and Suter have all been good this year, but Francona still hasn’t found a solid bridge reliever to that trio. 

Cincinnati signed Scott Barlow in the hopes that he’d be able to fill those innings, but he has a 4.25 ERA on the season despite some better play as of late. The same can be said for Taylor Rogers, who is still working to build trust with the fanbase after a blow up against the Minnesota Twins last month.

Which brings us back to Richardson. He’s held hitters to a .196 batting average in low-leverage situations, but that batting average rises once you get to medium-leverage (.227) and high-leverage (.278). And that was before the Boston Red Sox tagged him for two runs in the eighth inning of Wednesday's game.

Part of that is the lack of deception in his arsenal. While that’s helped him keep the ball on the ground (93rd percentile in ground-ball rate), he’s in the 1st percentile in chase rate, meaning he’s one of MLB’s worst at getting hitters to swing at balls out of the zone. Couple that with his 47.4% hard-hit rate, and you’ve suddenly got a much clearer picture as to why he’s struggling in high-leverage situations.

At this point, the Reds have no option but to continue to trust Richardson. But, as the past two weeks have shown us, he might not be deserving of that trust.

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