After many months of waiting for the first week of the 2016 baseball season, it passed us by far too quickly. While Colorado Rockies fans are cheering for Trevor Story’s historical start and Baltimore Orioles fans are cheering for their undefeated team, Miami Marlins fans are wringing their hands at the thought of the word, “bullpen.”

While none of the aspects of the team were quite firing on all cylinders during week one, there were good signs from the offense, promising signs from the defense, and a nice surprise from the starting rotation. As predicted before the season though, the bullpen was already a thorn in the team’s side.

The offense has averaged 4.5 runs per game and showed the ability to come back from a large deficit. While some parts of the offense haven’t yet clicked (Marcell Ozuna in the two spot looks like a huge mistake), the bats as a whole have not been the problem.

Starting pitching hasn’t been great, but rough starts by Jose Fernandez and Wei-Yin Chen can be looked at as outliers. Chen was hit in the elbow and likely had some Opening Day jitters. He’s still primed for a solid year and perhaps the best of his career given the move from an excellent division and a hitter’s heaven to a much weaker division and a hitter’s hell. Jose Fernandez, while giving up five runs, still struck out thirteen and showed why he is one of the most exciting pitchers in the game. His first start may end up being his worst of the season (by runs allowed, at least.) Adam Conley only tossed one inning and gave up three runs in it, but he looked just about ready to settle in when a bad pitch to Daniel Murphy brought in three and then a rain delay knocked Conley out of the game. As a positive, Tom Koehler went on the road to Washington and held the Nationals to one run in six innings before manager Don Mattingly tried to press his luck and send Koehler out for the seventh.

The Bad News Bears part of the team has been the bullpen. With hard throwing, promising young arms like Nick Wittgren, Kyle Barraclough, Brian Ellington, Nefi Ogando, and Cody Ege in the minor leagues, the Marlins have seen the arms of Chris Narveson, Craig Breslow, Dustin McGowan, and Bryan Morris let them down several times already. One positive bullpen arm has been that of David Phelps, who came in after the rain delay that knocked out Adam Conley and tossed four scoreless innings, allowing just two hits and picking up the win. Other than Phelps though, the bullpen has had a rough season already, with at least one bad performance to point out in each game.

On Opening Day, starter Wei-Yin Chen was not at his best. The Marlins stormed back and still had a chance to win, though, but Bryan Morris and Craig Breslow made sure that didn’t happen. Morris pitched the ninth and gave up two runs on two solo home runs, putting the Marlins in a deeper hole that they were still able to come back from with three runs in the bottom half of the ninth. Lefty Craig Breslow came in to pitch the eleventh and made the comeback meaningless, as he allowed a run before he was able to get three outs, and the Marlins bats did not have another comeback left in them. In between Morris and Breslow, closer A.J. Ramos came in and threw a scoreless inning despite three walks and only twelve of his twenty-six pitches being strikes.

In game two of the year, starter Jose Fernandez struck out thirteen in only five and two-thirds innings, but he had given up three runs before yielding the game to the bullpen with two runners on base. Dustin McGowan immediately came in and let Jose’s runners score, putting five runs total on Jose’s line before getting the one out he was asked. Two innings later, lefty Chris Narveson came in and gave up two more runs on five hits in two innings, putting the game out of reach for the Marlins.

The third game of the season started with a first inning that saw both teams score three runs followed by an eighty-five-minute rain delay. Young lefty starter Adam Conley was not asked to return after the delay, so Mattingly went with reliever David Phelps, who has experience as a starter as well. Phelps was brilliant, arguably turning in the best performance by a Marlins pitcher thus far in 2016. He tossed four scoreless innings, allowing the Marlins to rally past the Nationals for their lone win of the season so far, 6-4. Still, Bryan Morris tried his best to mess things up, giving up a run on three walks and a hit and staying one bad bounce away from letting the Nationals break it open.

Game four was more of the same for the Marlins. Starter Tom Koehler left with one out in the seventh inning after allowing just one run. Chris Narveson came in, gave up a hit and a walk, and left. He was unable to get anyone out, so he yielded the mound to Edwin Jackson. Jackson inherited a tough bases loaded, one out situation, but he handled it about as poorly as possible, allowing all three runs to score while giving up two hits before getting the two outs asked of him. The Marlins tried to come back, but again the bullpen had put the team into too deep of a hole.

With promising young arms in the high minors, the Marlins bullpen being made up of aging former mediocre starters and aging formerly mediocre relievers is quite frustrating. No one knows how Barraclough, Ellington, Ege, Wittgren, Ogando, and other young arms will do in a full season of Major League Baseball, but we’re already getting a pretty good idea how the guys currently in the pen will. A change needs to be made, and the sooner the better.