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Relief pitching was pretty rough for the Angels in the first half and on one will be surprised with some of the following numbers. Overall, the Angels have the 4th most worked bullpen which also is a statement on the starting pitching woes as well. See the table below for some more numbers, as well as the team in first place with their total for reference:
| Category | Total | Place | Total for 1st | Team in 1st |
| IP | 297 | 4th | 305.2 | Athletics |
| K/9 | 7.03 | 14th | 11 | Yankees |
| ERA | 4.09 | 6th | 2.92 | Royals |
| WAR | -0.2 | 14th | 5.6 | Astros |
| Blown Saves | 11 | 7th | 16 | Mariners |
Individual pitching performances are in the table below, along with my very grade on each pitcher. Surprisingly, Cam Bedrosian and Deolis Guerra come out on top. All those blown games by Cam have perhaps mold him into a better pitcher. He is, however, REALLY GOOD at letting inherited runners score. The league average is 32% and he has let in 44% of his inherited runners. Greg Mahle was MUCH worse and we all know he's pitching in AAA right now.
Remember, with some of these numbers it's important to look at totals. Ie., Huston Street has let in 50% of inherited runners, but he's only had two of them which is a pretty small sample. Also, Al Alburquerque has a HR per 9 inning rate of 4.5 but he's only pitched 2 innings (and given up 1 HR).
| Grade | Player | W | L | ERA▲ | G | SV | BS | IR | IS% | IP | HR/9 | BB/9 | K/9 | WHIP |
| A | Guerra, D | 2 | 0 | 2.73 | 17 | 1 | 11 | 27% | 26.1 | 0.7 | 0.3 | 6.2 | 0.840 | |
| A- | Bedrosian, C | 1 | 0 | 1.09 | 37 | 34 | 44% | 33 | 0.3 | 3.0 | 9.8 | 1.120 | ||
| B+ | Ramirez, J | 0 | 0 | 3.24 | 8 | 4 | 25% | 8.1 | 0.0 | 2.2 | 8.9 | 1.440 | ||
| C+ | Morin, M | 1 | 1 | 4.93 | 35 | 22 | 18% | 34.2 | 1.1 | 2.6 | 7.6 | 1.130 | ||
| C | Rasmus, C | 0 | 1 | 3.72 | 13 | 3 | 33% | 19.1 | 0.5 | 5.7 | 6.1 | 1.240 | ||
| C | Alvarez, J | 1 | 2 | 4.38 | 40 | 1 | 33 | 33% | 37 | 0.7 | 2.9 | 8.5 | 1.590 | |
| C | Achter, A | 0 | 0 | 3.98 | 12 | 20.1 | 2.2 | 1.8 | 4.0 | 1.430 | ||||
| D | Smith, J | 1 | 4 | 4.8 | 30 | 6 | 3 | 3 | 33% | 30 | 1.2 | 3.9 | 6.6 | 1.470 |
| D- | Salas, F | 3 | 6 | 5.05 | 41 | 2 | 4 | 20 | 15% | 41 | 1.8 | 2.6 | 6.6 | 1.240 |
| F | Street, H | 3 | 1 | 5.09 | 21 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 50% | 17.2 | 1.0 | 5.8 | 5.8 | 1.920 |
| F | Mahle, G | 1 | 0 | 5.4 | 24 | 11 | 64% | 18.1 | 2.0 | 5.0 | 7.0 | 1.800 | ||
| F | Guerra, J | 0 | 0 | 5.68 | 7 | 5 | 20% | 6.1 | 1.5 | 10.3 | 5.9 | 1.890 | ||
| Chacin, J | 0 | 0 | 3.38 | 3 | 2.2 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 8.2 | 0.750 | |||||
| Alburquerque, A | 0 | 0 | 4.5 | 2 | 2 | 4.5 | 9.0 | 4.5 | 2.000 |
I didn't give Chacin and Alburquerque grades since they had so few innings pitched. Ramirez doesn't have too many either, but he has already appeared in 8 games.
I hate to give Mahle an F, but he let a LOT of inherited runners score, had a pretty high walk rate and a very high WHIP. Javy Guerra didn't pitched a lot of inning either, but his walks were out of control in his short time with the Halos. Huston Street is pretty obivous. He's having the worst year of his career and has already blown 2 saves in 9 attempts. He's pretty much throwing BP and has the highest WHIP on the team with relievers over 2 IP.
Something is going to have to change for this bullpen to turn around in the second half and that includes getting MUCH better performances out of Street and Smith. If Salas doesn't improve, hopefully Scioscia will stop using him in so many high leverage situations.
Salas, Smith, and Street are key to our bullpen's success, and all three of them are having the worst years of the careers. Ouch. If these three guys can turn it around in the second half, that will go a long way to not blowing games in the later innings.