While the Pirates have had their own share of bullpen issues this year, arguably, no team in the National League has had a worse performance from their bullpen than the Washington Nationals, whose relievers have registered a wretched 5.36 ERA over 127 innings of action. It’s the very reason commentators couldn’t help but mention during last week’s Pirates and Nationals’ series that Washington probably wishes they hadn’t parted ways with Felipe Rivero at the deadline; yet, even they couldn’t have predicted how dominant Rivero would be this season.
As you may already know, prospect pundits weren’t particularly high on Rivero, expecting him to be a back of the rotation starter or maybe a solid reliever if he could put it all together.