The Diamondbacks made the tough decision to take Jordan Montgomery out of the rotation and move him to the bullpen to finish out the season. It was a decision dictated by performance, as the veteran left-hander had a 6.44 ERA in 19 starts. Manager Torey Lovullo went on The Burns & Gambo Show for his weekly Friday appearance to talk about that decision.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!“It’s been about as tough a decision as I’ve had to make since I’ve become the manager here. Jordan Montgomery’s reputation obviously spoke for itself. He won a world championship and he’s had some good moments, but you know, with 34, 35 games left in the season, I have to make these tough decisions and I’ve got to, I’ve got to do them in the best interest of this team.”
Considering how Montgomery carried the Rangers down the stretch and through the postseason in 2023, it’s an outcome very few expected when they signed him to a one-year deal in March. The expectation was the 2024 Diamondbacks would feature one of the best starting rotations in baseball headlined by Zac Gallen, Merrill Kelly, Eduardo RodrÃguez, Jordan Montgomery, and Brandon Pfaadt. Thanks to injuries and poor performances, the team’s two most reliable starters have been Pfaadt and Ryne Nelson.
Nelson has turned his season and career trajectory around in the last seven weeks. The right-hander has been one of the best pitchers in baseball over that stretch, pitching to a 2.76 ERA in his 10 appearances (9 starts) with 62 strikeouts and 12 walks in his last 62 innings. Entering play on August 23, Nelson has the fourth-highest fWAR (1.7) amongst major league pitchers since July 1. The three pitchers ahead of him? Left-handers Chris Sale, Blake Snell, and Framber Valdez.
“If it was April, we might have a different conversation, but for right now, I have Nelly throwing the ball as good as anybody, and I have to make this decision.”
When Lovullo made the decision, he called Montgomery into his office. He told Dave Burns and Tim Ring that the veteran left-hander handled the news “as good as I could have imagined”. He told Montgomery the decision comes down to performance, as right-hander Ryne Nelson has earned the opportunity to close out the season as the team’s No. 5 starter.
This isn’t the first time the Diamondbacks demoted a struggling starter to the bullpen. They did something similar last season with Nelson, who had struggled to a 5.44 ERA with ugly peripherals in 29 appearances (27 starts), moving him to the bullpen for the postseason. They got mixed results, but the right-hander finished it out strong with a Herculean effort in Game 4 of the World Series with one run allowed in 4 1/3 innings. Ironically enough a year later, he finds himself on the other side of a similar decision.
The silver lining to having Montgomery in the bullpen is the Diamondbacks will now have three left-handers in their bullpen for the final five weeks. Right-handers have crushed him to a .327/.383/.539 slash with 12 home runs but he has kept left-handed hitters to a .250/.318/.333 slash. He’ll serve as an innings-eater out of the pen to take some innings off pitchers in a mop-up scenario. With four of the team’s projected five starters being right-handed, there will be opportunities against some left-handed heavy lineups.
The bullpen is still relatively uncharted territory for Montgomery, who has one career relief appearance in the regular season and two in the postseason. Being a starter for his entire career, there’s a much different routine for getting ready for games. Instead of the 35-minute warmup routine he would have as a starter, he’ll need to be able to get loose in seven to ten minutes.
“By the time the phone rings, you’re getting ready to go into a game. You’ve got a two-minute transition. You’ve got a batter or two that you might have to get ready to. So it could be up to seven minutes, but the hard part is getting ready quickly. And normally when you fill a role as a long man, you know the target, you know when you’re going to come in the game. So I’ve averaged it out to be the six, seven-minute range.”
How quickly Montgomery can adjust to his new role will likely determine if the team considers him for postseason action, especially if they get deeper into the postseason where having someone who can eat innings may be more valuable with a longer series.
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Michael McDermott covers the Arizona Diamondbacks, Arizona Cardinals, and more for Burn City Sports. You can follow him on X via @MichaelMcDMLB
