As Bullpen Thrives, David Hernandez Discusses Reason for His Success

The baseball world dropped its collective jaw this past winter when the Yankees acquired Aroldis Chapman, creating as unhittable a bullpen trio as baseball has ever seen with Chapman, Andrew Miller and Dellin Betances.

When the Phillies signed David Hernandez, picked Hector Neris as one of their final relievers out of camp and made Jeanmar Gomez the closer, nobody even flinched.

And yet here we are, more than 25 percent of the way through the season and the Phillies have had the best bullpen trio in all of baseball. 

Will it last? Who knows. 

But right now, Gomez leads the majors with 16 saves and 21 games finished.

Neris leads the majors with 11 holds.

Neris (33) and Hernandez (30) lead all National League relievers in strikeouts. And that duo has held its opponents to a .165 batting average.

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Neris' splitter is emerging as one of the game's best pitches. Hernandez's fastball is missing a remarkable number of bats. And Gomez, though he doesn't have swing-and-miss stuff, just continues to pile up saves with quick, groundball-filled ninth innings.

"Give us a lead, we feel like we're not going to give up a run," Hernandez said. "That's the way the thought process needs to be."

"We have a lot of confidence in those guys," starting pitcher Jeremy Hellickson said of the bullpen. "Any time we can go six, seven innings and give it to those guys at the back, ever since the first series, they’ve been lights out. We have all the confidence in the world in those guys."

Hernandez signed a $3.9 million contract with the Phillies at the same time they traded Ken Giles to Houston, which created the expectation that he would close. The first series of the season, he came on in the eighth inning against the Reds to protect a one-run lead and allowed three runs without recording an out. Since then? He has a 1.33 ERA with 16 scoreless outings.

Hernandez attributes this run, the best of his career, to health and an improved fastball.

"I think just better life on my fastball. Being able to get that spin, staying on top of it," he said. "I think it's a little more deceiving than it has been in years past and that just comes with getting my arm in the right spot and throwing downhill.

"It's just getting my arm up and creating the riding fashion instead of the flatness where the fastball just kind of tails. It looks like it's rising. It's the first time in a long time I've had a fastball like I have right now."

The concern with this group is sustainability. Neris (22) and Gomez (21) have the most appearances among all National League relievers. Neris throws his splitter more than any reliever in baseball — can his elbow hold up? And Hernandez has had a heavy workload, too, in his second season back from Tommy John surgery.

For now, though, manager Pete Mackanin is not worried about their usage.

"That keeps coming up and I don't understand it," Mackanin said. "I don't think they're being overused. They're getting days off, both [Hernandez and Neris] just came off three days off. When we get into July and August, we'll look at it. But to me it’s not even an issue."

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