BOSTON — It was in late June, when the Rays were actually still in first place and the bullpen was racking up the innings at a dizzying rate, when this question was posed to Kevin Jepsen: Will the bill for the early season workload be paid later in the year.
“We’ll find out,” he said.
Obviously, Jepsen isn’t around to see what has happened since his July 31 trade to Minnesota, but the Rays bullpen has struggled over the past two months.
“That’s certainly been the case as of late,” Rays manager Kevin Cash said. “We won a lot of tight ball games in large part to the bullpen effort, and then as of late we’ve lost some tough ball games with the bullpen being involved.