The Oakland A’s starting pitching has been solid this season. The bullpen, not so much.  When Scott Kazmir, Sonny Gray and company hand the ball over to the relief pitchers, they do so in hope of them maintaining the lead, however the bullpen has been disappointing thus far.

With Sean Doolittle still on the disabled list, guys like Tyler Clippard, Dan Otero and Fernando Abad have been asked to pick up the slack.  Surprisingly, however, Evan Scribner has been a big boost in the later innings, shutting down the opposition and creating a rhythm for the following pitcher’s to replicate.

While the starters have a combined 3.27 ERA, fourth best in all of baseball, the relief pitchers have a combined ERA of 4.50, 27th in the league.

So what can the A’s do to fix this problem?

Well, its hard to see Billy Beane trade for bullpen help, especially when he has solid pitchers on the roster, who are just going through a funk. With roster turnarounds come problems like this. The A’s set pitchers for the seventh, eighth, and ninth last year, but when the closer is on the DL and there are new faces in the pen, it takes some time to get used to.

The whole team is going through some struggles and getting back into the rhythm of the game.  As Doolittle has stated, they’re trying to find their identity.  New team, new players, new roster, a new identity has to be found, and they’ll figure it out.

It seems the A’s have bullpen issues that are always solved within their own staff. A few years ago it was Grant Balfour who was demoted for Ryan Cook before regaining the closer’s role. Last year Jim Johnson struggled, which allowed Doolittle to step up and have an All Star season.

Clippard was signed in the offseason to add depth and experience to the bullpen, but so far, he has struggled and underperformed.  Since his All Star season back in 2012, Cook has been disappointing on the mound as well.  Doolittle is a key aspect of this A’s bullpen and his presence is greatly missed.  The sooner the All Star can get back to closing for the green and gold the better; he’s making good progress and should be able to return relatively soon.

In the meantime, the A’s have to figure out a way to fix these bullpen woes.  A lot of it has to do with simply finding the right formula.  Which pitcher’s seem to do best in certain situations, and who handles the later innings the best.  As of late, Scribner has been successful, and Clippard got the save Friday night against the Rangers.

The A’s have had bullpen woes early in the season in the past, and made adjustments to create a quite dominating pen.  April wasn’t too kind to the A’s, but this new roster is learning and gelling with each passing day.