Phillies relying on young arms in the bullpen this season

MINNEAPOLIS — When Rich Dubee looks at his bullpen, he focuses on the potential.

"I like all four of those kids," the Phillies pitching coach said, referring to 26-year-olds Antonio Bastardo, B.J. Rosenberg and Joe Savery and 25-year-old Jake Diekman.

Not that he has a choice.

The Phillies have long relied on veterans to fill most holes in their bullpen. Heading into 2008, it was such players as Brad Lidge, J.C. Romero, Chad Durbin, Tom Gordon and Rudy Seanez who joined homegrown setup man Ryan Madson in the bullpen. Over the next couple years, Scott Eyre and Chan Ho Park joined the fold. In 2010 and 2011, it was Danys Baez and Jose Contreras.

This year, though, the Phillies have been forced to lean heavily on young arms from their system. Aside from big-ticket closer Jonathan Papelbon, the only offseason acquisition they carried into the season was righthander Chad Qualls. Contreras was still working his way back from an elbow injury that cost him most of 2011. Lefty Dontrelle Willis was cut midway through spring training.

The results haven't always been pretty. Highly touted righthander Justin De Fratus was expected to work his way into the mix, but an elbow injury has sidelined him since spring training. In April, young righthanders David Herndon and Mike Stutes, both of whom logged significant workloads in 2011, hit the disabled list. Neither is close to returning.

Bastardo, who spent most of last season as one of the most dominant setup men in the National League, has pitched well when called upon, but the Phillies are not calling on him as often as he did last season, when the lefty struggled down the stretch. Bastardo suffered from some elbow tightness in spring training, and he has a history of injuries, but Dubee says he is not hurt.

"I'm not being cautious, I'm just trying to space out the work," Dubee said. "I thought he ran out of gas" last season.

The various health issues have forced the Phillies to rely on Diekman, Savery and, most recently, Rosenberg, none of whom was on the Opening Day roster. Assuming they stay in the race for the NL East Division, you can expect the club to look to add a veteran arm before the trade deadline. In the meantime, Dubee is doing his best to instill confidence in his young charges.

"What are you going to do? Call the game in the sixth? There's plenty of options," he said. "They've all got good arms down there.

"It's like I told them, this is the best group we've had. We haven't had a group like this in our bullpen. Most of it has been free agents, veteran guys, with a young guy here or there. This group has upside."

The question is how long those players will take to reach that upside.

At the start of the Phillies' last homestand, Jimmy Rollins was a hot topic of conversation. At the time, he was hitting only .239 with a .294 on-base percentage and 10 extra-base hits in 220 plate appearances. But he entered this weekend in Toronto hitting .317 with a .339 OBP and eight extra-base hits in 62 plate appearances since that homestand began at the start of June. In fact, if you split Rollins' season in two, the second half of it saw him hit .286/.329 with a .450 slugging percentage and four home runs.

Contact David Murphy at dmurphy@phillynews.com. Follow him on Twitter @HighCheese.