C. Trent Rosecrans

crosecrans@enquirer.com

ST. LOUIS — The easiest way to play matchup in the bullpen is to bring in left-handed pitchers to face left-handed batters and right-handed pitchers to face right-handed batters.

It’s not only the easiest way, but it’s the most common.

“It’s silly,” said Reds pitching coach Mack Jenkins. “It’s outdated.”

As the bullpen coach for the Reds the last four years before being promoted last month to pitching coach, Jenkins had been working on a different way to use relievers.

Instead of the most simple and obvious split — handedness — why not match up strengths versus weaknesses? If a hitter struggles against curveballs, throw a pitcher with a good curveball. If the hitter is an extreme fly ball hitter, bring in a pitcher who gets more ground balls. Can’t catch up with a fastball? Well, bring in the flamethrower.

“Use the data that’s there — that this guy chases a lot of sliders and this guy has a slider that people chase, that’s a good matchup for us,” Jenkins said. “You’re always playing the percentages, we’re just doing in a 21st century way.”

For each game, Jenkins has a chart. One column has the available relievers, the other the batters on the other team. It’s then color-coded, telling Jenkins and Bryan Price which matchups they want. Green is good, blue is OK, white is neutral, pink is so-so and red is bad.

In Monday’s game, the Reds led 4-0 when left-handed hitting Matt Adams came into the game to pinch-hit with two on and one out. Adams is a fly-ball hitter, Blake Wood is a ground-ball pitcher — Wood was highlighted in green and Price brought Wood into the game. The result was not only a ground ball but the best kind — an inning-ending double play.

It doesn’t always work, it is baseball after all. But it’s a way of looking at things differently and doing things differently. If there’s a positive to a rebuilding season, it’s the ability to be different, to tinker, to innovate.

“Some teams have had success matching up late in games, and that’s one way to do it,” Jenkins said. “I think if you can afford to do it, financially, if they can afford to pay six guys a lot of money to do it, it works. I don’t think we’re going to find ourselves in that situation anytime soon.”

When the Reds had one of the best bullpens in the game in 2012, it was simple, they worked backwards — Aroldis Chapman was at the back of the bullpen and there was left-hander Sean Marshall and right-hander Jonathan Broxton to get to the ninth.

That’s not the case now and it may not be the case in the future. That’s why the Reds are trying different things, including not naming a closer. Ask Price who his closer is and he won’t have an answer. Tony Cingrani has gotten the lion’s share of save opportunities since J.J. Hoover was demoted from the role, but he’s never been told he’s the closer.

And with the emergence of Raisel Iglesias and Michael Lorenzen, that may not happen at all.

On Tuesday, Iglesias recorded his first career save, coming into the game in the ninth, recording three outs and holding a three-run lead. Afterward, Iglesias said earning the save was as big to him as the nod to start Opening Day.

Iglesias is still somewhat limited by a shoulder injury. After Tuesday’s game, Iglesias said the shoulder felt great, that he was strong and could go on back-to-back days, something he hasn’t done since returning from the disabled list in late June.

If Iglesias were to become the team’s closer, he’d have to be able to pitch in at least back-to-back games, if not more. Or at least that’s the traditional way closers are used.

Price and Jenkins are looking at the best way to use Iglesias, not the best way to find a closer. In Iglesias and Lorenzen, the Reds have two pitchers who came into spring training as part of the team’s planned rotation. Those two are now in the bullpen and although it has been noted again and again that no decision on their future has been made, Price has hinted that both could be effective relievers, especially late in games.

The Reds have been down the starter-or-closer road before with Chapman. Ultimately, Chapman became a closer, perhaps the best in the game, even though at the time, Price was on record as being on the start side.

The difference with Iglesias is the shoulder issue. The 26-year-old right-hander had his 2015 cut short with shoulder fatigue. Iglesias was a reliever in Cuba, and the Reds were one of the few teams to see him as a starter. While he showed great promise in that role, the return of shoulder problems in 2016 calls into question whether he could start. He’s been limited since his return, but Price said he expects to have Iglesias available on a more regular basis by the end of the year.

And that’s where the Reds’ bullpen laboratory comes in. Could Iglesias become a modern-day fireman? The one-inning closer didn’t come into vogue until 1991 when Toronto’s Tom Henke and Baltimore’s Gregg Olson started being used exclusively for one inning.

Price, on the other hand, can see a possibility of Iglesias, Lorenzen, Cingrani or Blake Wood finishing games, recording the final out, but not limited to the final three, perhaps getting six or nine outs. Iglesias, Lorenzen and Cingrani have all started with varying degrees of success, but that experience lends to their ability to pitch more than one inning at a time, as does the ability of all three to handle a bat and field their position, meaning they can stay in games longer.

To do that successfully, you can’t have just one multi-inning fireman, you need at least two, if not three, Price said. Jenkins thinks it’s possible with Iglesias, Lorenzen and Josh Smith. Then there’s the influx of arms in the Reds’ minor-league system, including Robert Stephenson, Nick Travieso, Sal Romano, Rookie Davis and Amir Garrett among other top arms in their farm system. Not all of those pitchers will end up in the rotation, Price noted, but they could be used as more than one-inning relievers.

“In Cuba, you always have your starter and then comes your best reliever, you can come in the sixth and finish the game, that’s not a problem for me if they bring me into the eighth and finish the game,” Iglesias said on Tuesday, according to translator Julio Morillo. “I will be fine with that.”

