Hello and welcome to the In The Pen podcast, a podcast about relievers part of the

Pitcherless podcast network.

My name is Jake Crumpler, and as always, I'm joined by pitcherless bullpen expert Rick Graham.

Hey, Rick.

Hey, how's it going?

It's been quite the week for closers and

hanging in there. I'm hanging in there. Thanks for asking. You didn't ask. But yes,

I'm still here. It's been, yeah, I can see you. So I know you're still alive.

I haven't given up. It's been, yeah, it's been the craziest,

I think, stretch to begin a year that I've seen in 10 years covering relievers and closer.

Yeah, Rick, last week you, I asked you to rate it. You rated it at a 7. We bumped up that

random thing to an 8 by the end of the podcast.

What would you rank the craziness of the early picture landscape now? It's at a 10. Think about what happened. Think about what happened right after like the next four,

five days after our last podcast. That was all the injuries. Everybody just fell apart. Yeah.

We, we had, what was the first injury? Palencia went on the aisle, plenty to the aisle, then D. Yeah. We had, what was the first injury?

Palencia went on the aisle,

Palencia to the aisle,

then Darius,

then Iglesias,

and then Hoffman lost his job,

potentially.

Devin Williams got blown up again.

...