Don’t get me wrong; I love Jhoan Duran! He was a great acquisition for the Phillies. I love a close Phillies game now because it means The Durantula might be coming in. Maybe I am just getting my annual jitters because the playoffs are getting closer and every pitch just means a little more. Having said that…

Is anyone else getting a little concerned? Duran is a lights out type of closer, but I still see a little light coming through. In 22 games with the Phillies, Duran has had 18 save opportunities and blown three of them for an 83% conversion rate. In attempting to calm myself down a little I looked at his career numbers and as baseball fans are apt to do, started playing with those numbers.

It turns out that Duran has had 101 save opportunities in his career and has blown just 12 of them. Prior to coming to Philadelphia he had an 89% conversion rate with the Twins and a full quarter of the blown saves in his career have come while he has had a Phillies uniform on.

Then I remembered a line drive off the bat of the Nationals’ Paul DeJong that hit Duran squarely in the ankle. It was August 15th and he had to be carted off of the field, but the next day Rob Thomson said he was “100 percent” and “good to go” even though his ankle was admittedly very sore. Two days after the incident he came on to get the final two outs against the Nationals and easily converted the save. Everything seemed good. Now though he has blown two of his last three save opportunities and I’m getting nervous.

In his last four outings, Duran also has a 6.75 ERA.

Perhaps you can chalk up last night’s blown save to having to wait while the trainer attended to catcher J.T. Realmuto after he took a foul ball off of his bare hand. After all, it was just two pitches later when Duran served up a game-tying home run.

Combine the Duran numbers with the fact that David Robertson has a 7.88 ERA in September and it gets a little more concerning. Don’t get me started on Orion Kerkering. In his last 12 outings he has posted a 5.25 ERA and his August and September numbers combined give him a 4.74 ERA over the past two months.

For a while it looked like the bullpen had gone from being a huge concern to being impenetrable. Now, I’m back to worrying about the bullpen and the postseason is right around the corner.

Am I the only one?