Craig Counsell was hired in part because of his accounting skills, but here we sit a couple days after the filing deadline and the Cubs bullpen has been overtaxed. Through two games in Arizona, the Cubs have used eight separate relievers — that’s the whole ‘pen — for 10 appearances to cover 9.2 of their 21 total innings. Taking it back to the final two games in Seattle, they’ve needed 18 relief appearances for 16.2 innings.
Four of those arms have been called upon three times and two more have been used twice, which I probably don’t need to tell you is a far cry from good.