While it’s hard to cry too many tears for a team that’s leading their division and tied for the most wins in baseball, the San Francisco Giants have been dealing with plenty of adversity this season, even year or not. You could start with the fact that the lineup they’re rolling out right now only features 50% of the starting lineup from the beginning of the season since they’re currently dealing with injuries to so many players. I was going to start rattling off injuries, but you should probably just head over to Fangraphs and stare at all those little crosses by their position players’ names. It’s not a pretty sight. Fortunately for the Giants, the players who have been filling in have been doing so admirably. Unfortunately, the Giants' bullpen has been a source of fairly constant frustration as of late.

The bullpen isn’t that different from last season. Jeremy Affeldt, unsung hero of the 2012 and 2014 postseasons (22 innings pitched holding opposing hitters to .141/.218/.141 with a 0.0 ERA), may have retired but he was also putting up his worst numbers in a decade in 2015 by pretty much every metric. Long reliever and spot starter Yusmeiro Petit is with the Nationals, and performing well by some metrics, not so well by others, but he was almost exclusively in mop-up duty last year, so it’s not as if his loss spelled doom for the Giants’ relief corps.

Regardless of the changes that the bullpen underwent this offseason, the results haven’t been good so far, especially looking at some of the stats that are better for evaluating relievers. The bullpen’s collective WHIP this year is 1.32, good for 14th in MLB. They come in 26th in MLB in K/9 at 7.61. By RE24, they come in 20th in MLB at -12.35. We’re not going to get into RE24 (here’s an article with an entertaining introduction and here’s an in-depth explanation), but it suffices to say that a -12.35 RE24 is definitely not a number you want to see your bullpen putting up, as it probably means they have not been performing very well in important situations. And they haven’t!!! They are tied with the Reds for last place in MLB in blown saves. Their left on base percentage is 71.8%, which puts them in a three way tie for 24th in MLB.

On an individual level, closer Santiago Casilla is actually striking out more batters than ever before (11.76 K/9) and he’s not walking a ton more hitters either, as his 3.21 BB/9 is lower than his career 3.87 BB/9. However, he’s got a .333 BABIP which is above the normal league BABIP (usually around .300) and well above his career BABIP of .279. His home run to flyball ratio (16.7%) is higher than ever, he’s giving up less line drives than ever (16.3 LD%) but allowing the most hard hit balls (28%) since his rookie year in 2004. All in all, Casilla’s peripheral stats show a pitcher who’s improved a bit in some areas and worsened a bit in others, but looks like he might be due to catch a few more breaks as the season goes on.

Left handed Giants relievers have been struggling in particular. Javier Lopez is having his worst run as a Giant. Josh Osich showed promise in 2015, but he’s taken a step back this year in his overall numbers. Of course, at least with Osich, those are the result of a few bad appearances, always a potential caveat with relievers.

Switching back to RHPs, there’s some good news as of late, with Sergio Romo coming off the DL and throwing his first MLB pitches since early April. Derek Law has been solid. Despite some rumors starting to bubble up as the All Star Break nears, it would probably be wise on the Giants’ part to sit out the trade market for a bit longer for now and see what happens. Bullpens are unpredictable beasts and they might want to wait a bit longer to hand all their prospects to the Yankees in exchange for Andrew Miller or another elite reliever, given the costs of pitching these days. While there are some problematic relievers on the roster, there are also some guys who will likely improve a bit as well.

Thanks in large part to a rotation that starts with Madison Bumgarner and Johnny Cueto in the top two spots, the Giants' bullpen has pitched the fifth least innings in MLB. At this point, the Giants might very well make some sort of move, but let’s just assume that it will be a smaller one, as is usually the front office’s MO when it comes to relievers. The lineup, the defense and the top of the rotation were certainly looking to be the Giants biggest strengths this year and that plan has panned out well (even if not exactly as expected with regard to the lineup). There are lots of different ways to build baseball teams and, so far, it seems that the Giants’ plan is working, even if their bullpen hasn’t been very good as a group at all.