(REUTERS/Jeff Haynes)

Deep and reliable bullpens have been a staple of the Joe Girardi era, as the Yankees started to shy away from multi-year contracts for free agent relievers and instead focused on building flexibility from within and off the scrap heap. Oh sure, there still is the occasional Rafael Soriano and Pedro Feliciano, but signings like that are no longer the norm. Unfortunately, an effective middle relief unit ahead of Soriano and David Robertson is no longer the norm these days either.

Joe Girardi had to run through five different relievers after Freddy Garcia was unable to complete five innings last night, and those five combined to allow four runs and eight baserunners in 3.2 innings. It was the second time in the last five games that the bullpen turned a winnable game into a multi-run loss, and during the month of the August the relief corps has pitched to a 4.28 ERA (3.53 FIP) in 48.1 innings. It’s a 3.92 ERA (3.59 FIP) in 181.1 innings since the start of June, a not small sample. I honestly don’t want to figure out what those numbers would be without Soriano, hands down the club’s best reliever this year.

The bullpen problems all started with Mariano Rivera‘s injury in May and were compounded when Cory Wade completely imploded a few weeks later. It was obvious the Yankees needed a quality bullpen arm — not Chad Qualls, not Derek Lowe, someone they could actually use in high-leverage spots — when Robertson hit the DL along with Mo in May, but the club decided to hang tight for a while to see what developed internally. A lot of faith was placed in Joba Chamberlain coming off his two injuries and he hasn’t rewarded that faith one bit since returning a few weeks ago. I’ve been saying it for months, they couldn’t count on him until they actually saw what he looked like against big league hitters. Those were two very serious injuries.

Anyway, the the decision to avoid the reliever trade market has left the Yankees with two excellent late-game arms and a handful of misfit toy middle relievers. Boone Logan leads the league in games pitched and looks more and more gassed with each appearance, and lefty counterpart Clay Rapada is a specialist in the truest sense of the term. Cody Eppley is a right-handed specialist and in case you haven’t noticed, he’s been pretty bad for close to eight weeks now — nine runs and 29 baserunners in his last 21 appearances (16.1 innings). That’s not the kind of middle relief help the Yankees have employed in recent years, not even close.

Of course, the real problem here is that we’re beyond the point of no return. Swinging a trade this late in the season for a quality arm is damn near impossible, especially since the Yankees have the best record in the league and thus the lowest waiver priority. Anytime a decent reliever hits the waiver wire, count on the Orioles and/or Rays blocking him. I’ll be the first time to admit that trading for relief help can be sketchy, but sometimes it’s just flat out unavoidable. You have to take risks to contend and trading for relievers when you need bullpen help qualifies as a risk in my book.

The Triple-A bullpen is mostly barren, thanks in part due to injuries as well as a late-Spring Training trade that sent the club’s best MLB-ready relief arm out west in exchange for a no-hit, meh-defense backup catcher. Wade has been okay since being demoted, nothing that would make you think his command issues have been corrected. Chase Whitley has legit big league potential, but he might not be ready yet. Justin Thomas, Ryota Igarashi, Manny Delcarmen … guys like that are cannon fodder, not viable middle relief aid. We’re all excited about Mark Montgomery, but the fact that we’re even talking about a kid with 17 career innings above Single-A as potential bullpen help is a sign of how little depth the Yankees have at the moment.

The good news is that help is on the way, at least in theory. CC Sabathia is expected to come off the DL on Friday, pushing David Phelps and his multi-inning ability back into the bullpen where he can soak up some of those middle innings. He would have been perfect for a game like last night’s. Andy Pettitte‘s return is still weeks away, but if he makes it back it could mean another relief arm in the form of Phil Hughes, Freddy Garcia, or Ivan Nova. Feliciano is pitching in rehab games and David Aardsma is throwing bullpen sessions, but again counting on guys coming off major injuries is even riskier than trading for relievers. This group represents their only options at the moment, however.

“We know (struggles are) part of the game,” said Logan after last night’s game. “That’s the way it works. We’re still a good bullpen. It’s funny how when someone struggles, we all struggle. It seems like we all struggle at the same time. Once we all start getting on a roll, we’ll all get on a roll, and get back to where we need to be.”

The Yankees have a very obvious weakness in their middle relief right now, moreso than at any point in the last three or four years. They have run into some bad injury luck, no doubt about it, but also made their own bed with the trade deadline inactivity and general over-reliance on Joba. Pretty much the only way to improve things right now is to hope the guys currently in the bullpen rediscover their previous forms, particularly Logan and Eppley. Getting Sabathia back and getting more length out of the starters in general will help limit the exposure of the middle relievers, but they can’t be avoided forever.

(Mike Stobe/Getty Images)

The Yankees put an end to the four-game losing streak with an offensive outburst yesterday, on the heels of going 13-13 in July despite a +18 run differential. Lots of close losses — seven one-run losses, three two-run losses in July — will throw a wrench into the ol’ pythag record. Bullpens play a major role in close games, and the Yankees lost a number of those one-run games because their usually reliable relief corps came up short. Just look at the Red Sox series, both Rafael Soriano and David Robertson took losses in that one.

The injury to Mariano Rivera was obviously significant, but Soriano has stepped in and done a marvelous job as his ninth inning replacement. The problem is that the middle relief weakens because he’s no longer throwing the seventh inning. Cory Wade‘s implosion left those key middle innings in the hands of a number of specialists, namely Cody Eppley, Clay Rapada, and Boone Logan. Those guys did a fine job for a while, but all of these close games have started to expose their weaknesses against batters of the opposite hand. Here’s a look at the bullpen’s month-by-month stats…

That’s a 3.68 ERA since the start of May — Mo’s last appearance was April 30th — so exactly league average as far as I’m concerned. That’s good, rock solid, but a notch below what the Yankees have gotten from their relievers in recent years. The bullpen pitched to a 3.29 ERA from 2010-2011 and a 3.59 ERA from 2008-2011, otherwise known as the four full seasons of the Joe Girardi era. This isn’t a fatal flaw kind of performance, but these guys haven’t been quite as automatic as we’ve grown accustomed too of late.

Joba Chamberlain officially returned to the bullpen two days ago, adding the kind of non-matchup reliever that I felt was an essential addition over the last few weeks. He showed his rust yesterday and therein lies the problem — we really have no idea what Joba will give the team going forward. It could be two months of utter dominance, it could be two months of replacement level production, it could be two months of something in the middle. Those were two very serious injuries — Tommy John guys tend to struggle with command during the first six or eight months after surgery anyway — and we shouldn’t downplay their potential impact. It’s going to take a few weeks before we get an accurate measure of his effectiveness.

The Yankees have been getting plenty of length out of their starters recently, with just eighth starts of fewer than six innings in the last 27 games. That dates back to the Adam Warren disaster. Only once during that stretch did a starter fail to complete at least five innings, and that was the David Phelps spot start in St. Pete (4.2 IP). The best way to improve the performance of the bullpen is to get even more length out of the starters so the specialists aren’t exposed. The offense blowing a few games open like yesterday wouldn’t hurt either. Girardi has done a really good job of mixing and matching with his middle guys, but the more relievers you use in a game, the more likely you are to run into someone having an off-night. That’s why all the specialists and matchup work can be dangerous.

Shave that facial hair, Chad. (AP)

The injuries to CC Sabathia and Andy Pettitte have hurt the Yankees in more ways than one. Obviously the biggest loss is in the rotation, where both guys where providing the team with lots of high quality innings every five days. As we saw with Adam Warren, plucking a kid out of Triple-A and inserting him into the rotation is much more effective in theory than in practice. It’ll be impossible for David Phelps and Freddy Garcia to replace what Sabathia and Pettitte the team on the field, so the Yankees are just going to have to hope they can tread water for the time being.

The losses of CC and Andy go beyond the rotation, however. Garcia’s move to the rotation also weakens the bullpen despite what will surely be D.J. Mitchell‘s best efforts. Cory Wade‘s crash back the Earth and the still weird acquisition of Chad Qualls further weaken the middle relief corps. Both Clay Rapada and Cody Eppley have been effective matchup guys, but asking them to face batters of the opposite hand on a regular basis is a recipe for trouble. There’s no way around it, the team’s biggest weakness right now are those innings between the starter and the Boone Logan/David Robertson setup duo.

To make matters worse, Garcia is not stretched out — he’s probably scheduled for something like 60-70 pitches tonight — and Phelps is expected to throw only 80 pitches when he makes his return to the rotation on Wednesday. Not only is the middle relief a sore spot, but the Yankees will send two starters to the mound against the Rays this week who will be unable to pitch deep into the game. The Mitchells and Wades and Quallses will be ripe for exposure. That also puts some pressure on Ivan Nova to give the team some distance on Tuesday. After years of beating up on the middle relievers of other teams, the Yankees might get a taste of their own medicine against Tampa.

The good news is that this is just temporary. Sabathia figures to be back shortly after the All-Star break and both Garcia and Phelps will get stretched out before long. Middle relief is relatively easy to fix, at least in the sense those guys are easy to replace if they stink. The Yankees aren’t committed to any of them long-term, so if Qualls stinks they can cut him and try someone else. If Wade doesn’t right the ship they can send him on his way. Joe Girardi & Co. have been building and rebuilding bullpens on the fly for five years now, no reason they can’t do it again. For the next three days though, we’re all going to have to hold our breath whenever that bullpen door swings open prior to the seventh inning.

RA! PA! DA! (Leon Halip/Getty Images)

The Yankees are expected to get David Robertson back for Friday’s series-opener in Washington, making tonight the last time Joe Girardi will have to use his mix-and-match bullpen tactics in the late innings. The one thing Girardi does better than anything else is manage his bullpen and put his relievers in a position to succeed, and year after year they continue to perform. Clay Rapada had no business throwing a scoreless eighth inning against one of the best offenses in baseball with a two-run lead while appearing in his fourth consecutive game last night, yet he did it anyway.

Rafael Soriano has stepped up and performed well as the closer while Robertson and Mariano Rivera were on the shelf, and while that is certainly appreciated, I think it’s the four-man setup crew that deserves the most applause. Boone Logan and Cory Wade started the season as sixth inning matchup guys and became a powerhouse setup duo, striking out 28 of 82 batters (34.1%) while walking just three unintentionally (none by Logan) during Robertson’s absence. Wade did allow back-breaking homers to Mark Trumbo (walk-off) and Miguel Cabrera (game-tying) during this stretch, but otherwise these two shut things down in the late-innings of close games.

Rapada and Eppley have been true specialists, almost never facing batters of the opposite hand. Seven out of every ten batters Rapada faced while Robertson was down were lefties, and he held them to two hits and four walks in 25 plate appearances. The free passes are a bit of an eyesore, though two of the four came in his first two appearances after Robertson’s injury, plus I don’t consider walking Nick Johnson to be a cardinal sin. Johnson tends to do that. Eppley has generated plenty of ground balls against right-handers in his matchup role, getting 11 grounders out of the 19 righties who put the ball in play off him.

Of course, one of the primary reasons this makeshift setup crew has pitched so well during Robertson’s absence has been the starters, who have consistently pitched deep into the game and are keeping the relievers from being overworked. In the 28 games without Robertson, the starter has gone at least six innings 22 times — including 18 times in the last 19 games — and at least seven innings 16 times. The Yankees haven’t had a starter complete fewer than five innings since David Phelps was making spot starts between Freddy Garcia and Andy Pettitte. You can’t say enough about how much strong starting pitching helps the bullpen.

Assuming nothing unfortunate happens between now and Friday, the Yankees are going to turn a very good bullpen back into a great one thanks to Robertson’s return. He’ll help lighten the load on Wade and Logan specifically, but also Soriano as well. The starters are on a collective roll and are pitching deep into the game, which has helped soften the blow while Robertson has been on the mend. Getting him back this weekend won’t solve the RISPFAIL, but it’s going to be a huge addition to a pitching staff that has stepped up and carried the team during this three-week stretch of winning.