Such was the case with Manny Delcarmen, who made three appearances in the past week on his way to earning Amica Pitcher of the Week honors.
Delcarmen has actually been a bit of a hidden gem thus far for the Red Sox. Though they toiled through a less-than-stellar April, Delcarmen managed a 1.74 ERA and 0.871 WHIP. He's kept it up through the first week of May, too, pitching 3 1/3 innings while allowing just two hits, one walk and one run. Though he surrendered a home run on Thursday, he picked up two holds in three appearances.
According to general manager Theo Epstein, Delcarmen has found his missing ingredient: zip.
"I think a few guys in the 'pen got off to a bit of a slow start, but they worked hard at it and redefined what they were missing — in Delcarmen's case, the power," Epstein told NESN baseball analyst Peter Gammons. "Two weeks ago, his velocity jumped up several ticks, and he's where he needs to be."
Of course, Delcarmen and the rest of his bullpen mates wouldn't be of much value without their starting rotation, which collectively has been fairly excellent since Sunday, but when the starters give a good effort, the relievers become invaluable.
"All the guys in our bullpen who we were kind of waiting on to come around are trending in the right direction, so that's a good sign — and it's no coincidence that starts happening when your starting pitching is starting to perform," Epstein said. "I don't care who you are, you can't ask a bullpen to go get 15 outs, 12 outs a game. That's just not going to work over any length of time.
"Starting pitching is really the key to the whole team."
Thanks in large part to that starting pitching but in an even larger part to his own abilities, Delcarmen put together a week solid enough to be named the Amica Pitcher of the Week.