D-backs GM Defends Manager's Bullpen Decisions, Takes Blame Himself

Prior to the Diamondbacks series finale against the Pittsburgh Pirates Wednesday, General Manager Mike Hazen spoke with Luke Lapinski and Kellan Olson of 98.7 Arizona Sports out at Chase Field. He addressed head on the issues with arguably MLB's worst bullpen.

This is a unit that has blown 19 leads, 11 saves, and has a 5.49 bullpen ERA, which ranks 27 in MLB. There have been numerous games, such as Tuesday's meltdown where a 6-2 lead in the eighth turned into a 9-6 deficit before the second out of the inning was recorded.

Hazen took full responsibility for the bullpen woes, full stop.

"That has been an issue for us for the first two months of this season. That is my responsibility" Hazen said. "This is my problem to have to fix and figure out a way to get this group in a spot where we are consistently locking down leads."

Hazen went on to discuss all the second guessing of manager Torey Lovullo that happens when things go wrong with the bullpen. He pointed out that every manager in MLB deals with taking the blame when the bullpen does not execute, and how off base most of the criticisms are.

"Everybody can look out at the bullpen and be like, well, if you just didn't put in that guy and you put in that guy, everything would have worked out different. Now, obviously, we all know that that's not the way life works, and it's no guarantee that that would have been the case."

Perhaps he had my question from the night before regarding not getting Kevin Ginkel out of the game sooner in mind when he said that.

Torey on why he didn’t get Ginkel out sooner

I asked for you guys pic.twitter.com/MQ1Luzq09h
— Jack Sommers (@shoewizard59) May 28, 2025

Hazen went on to evaluate the decision making that Lovullo and his coaches are making on a nightly basis.

"It is a group that is making decisions based on the information they have. We are aware of why they make those decisions. We're part of some of that calculus in giving them information that they have available to them. And you trust that they're making the right decisions, and I do believe he's doing that.

"When the execution doesn't happen, then it's the easiest place to go is it was his decision that screwed it up. That is not what happens. The players bear responsibility to execute in those situations"

To be sure, it's not only the bullpen that has failed of late. The defense and situational hitting has been inconsistent and far from perfect. Perhaps beaten down under the weight of all the devastating losses, the players looked unfocused from the eighth inning Tuesday, as if they had "seen a Ghost", Lovullo said.

That carried over into a dismal 10-1 loss on Wednesday afternoon that included mistakes on defense too many to mention. They were facing Paul Skenes, so the offense struggling was not a surprise. But Zac Gallen issued three leadoff walks while the defense made two errors, and at least three other misplays, all of which contributed to Pirates runs.

Clearly the position player group has been traumatized and are having a let down after seeing their good work get flushed down the drain time and time again. So much so that Todd Walsh of Dbacks.TV relayed an anecdote from the dugout about players going up to Lovullo and begging him to leave the starting pitcher in longer and not turn things over to the bullpen.

Despite all of this, don't expect these issues to be resolved externally. At this stage of the season, in late May, teams are not yet ready to sell the best, high leverage relievers. Hazen said that any reinforcements are going to have to come either internally, from their minor league depth in Reno, or from the waiver wire.

"That's what's afforded to you probably for the next four weeks. I think at that point, there could be some teams that would be willing." [To make a trade]

Limited to those internal option, things are only going to improve if the pitchers they have start to pitcher better, save for getting lucky with waiver wire pickup.

"We have to figure this out inside right now." Hazen said. "The thought of waiting for [Injured reliever A.J. Puck] to get back is going to fix everything, waiting for the deadline to come to fix everything, that's not the way this is going to work. We are not going to be afforded that opportunity to wait until July to fix this issue. This needs to get fixed immediately."

He's not wrong about that. The D-backs are 27-29, and five games out of the third National League Wild Card. There are four teams in front of them, and two more creeping up right behind. We've seen this team get on runs before, and they still own the fifth best offense in MLB, scoring 4.98 runs per game.

But if they fail to turn this around over the month of June and end up falling further behind, the discussion is likely to turn from who should they pursue as buyers at the deadline to what prospects they might get back as sellers.

An Honest Assessment of Diamondbacks 2025 Bullpen Construction