Last season 31-year old Chad Qualls and 26-year old righty Juan Gutierrez were solid performing late in games but this season they have both stunk it up. Qualls has pitched in 28 games (0 starts) for the D-Backs this year and he is 1-3 with 12 saves, a 8.46 ERA and a 2.19 WHIP. He has given up 39 hits and walked 10 batters in only 22 1/3 innings this year as he has been truly awful. Juan Gutierrez replaced Qualls as the closer last season when he injured himself but the D-Backs won’t let him anywhere near the 9th inning this year. He has pitched in 23 games (0 starts) for the D-Backs this year and he is 0-5 with 1 save, a 9.28 ERA and a 1.73 WHIP. Gutierrez has given up 27 hits (10 homers) and he has walked 10 batters in only 21 1/3 innings so far this year. It’s time for the Diamondbacks to give 31-year old righty Aaron Heilman a job that he has always wanted and let him close. He has been by far the best pitcher in the D-Backs’ pen this season working in 29 games (0 starts) in which he is 2-1 with a 2.83 ERA and a 1.26 WHIP.

The Diamondbacks need to make some changes in the bullpen before the season goes down the drain. The D-Backs’ bullpen is 4-8 with 7 saves, a 7.55 ERA and a 1.75 WHIP! Aaron Heilman is the only pitcher in the D-Backs’ pen with a ERA under 6.00 and that speaks volumes about how bad the pen has been this year. Heilman has pitched in 16 games (0 starts) for the D-Backs this season and he is 0-1 with a 4.05 ERA and a 1.13 WHIP. A bad bullpen is the quickest way to crush a team’s confidence so the D-Backs can’t wait around to fix it.

26-year old righty starting pitcher Billy Buckner has been truly pathetic for the D-Backs this season. He has pitched in 14 games (11 starts) for the D-Backs this season and he is 2-6 with a 6.75 ERA and a 1.69 WHIP. He has allowed 85 hits (11 of them homers) in only 64 innings this season. He better miss more bats if he wants to have a future with the D-Backs.

24-year old righty starting pitcher Yusmeiro Petit has been truly awful this season. He has pitched in 21 games (17 starts) with the D-Backs this season and he is 3-10 with a 5.85 ERA and a 1.49 WHIP. In three years with the Diamondbacks Petit has pitched in 54 games (35 starts) in which he is 9-19 with a 5.06 ERA and a 1.32 WHIP. The Diamondbacks might look to trade Petit in the off-season as they seem to be running out of patience with him.

Wow.  That didn’t last too long!  The Diamondbacks saw Joe Kennedy 3 times and Byung-Hyun Kim twice and they saw enough of them to know that they didn’t want either of them around any more.  Kennedy pitched in 3 games for the Diamondbacks and he was 0-0 with a 20.25 ERA and a 2.25 WHIP.  He worked 2.2 innings for the D-Backs and he allowed 4 hits, hit 4 batters, walked 2 and whiffed 1.  Byung-Hyun Kim started 2 games and he was 0-1 with a 23.62 ERA and a 4.87 WHIP.  He only lasted 2.2 innings in his starts and he allowed a whopping 11 hits, 9 runs (7 earned), walked 2 batters and whiffed 3.  These moves are addition by subtraction for the D-Backs.