Mariners' most scrutinized reliever is suddenly saving the bullpen from total ruin

This is a Jose A. Ferrer appreciation post, and it's the first of its kind around these parts. This is what happens when muted expectations meet an increasingly impressive reality, especially at a moment when the Seattle Mariners bullpen needs a rock.

With Matt Brash, Gabe Speier and Carlos Vargas hurt and Andrés Muñoz not looking like himself, Ferrer has been that rock. He's made a league-high 20 appearances and pitched to a 1.89 ERA. He appeared in all three games of Seattle's white-knuckle series win over the Atlanta Braves, sealing the deal with an ABS-aided strikeout on Wednesday.

According to Adam Jude of The Seattle Times, the 26-year-old lefty spoke about feeling "super good" physically after Wednesday's win. Those words hit different amid all the injuries and nail-biting, and they only fuel belief that the Mariners were right about him.

This brings us to crow-eating time, folks. We had our doubts, and not even ones that were entirely related to how the Mariners sacrificed a top-100 prospect to get Ferrer. He introduced himself with a bad spring training, and the first few weeks of his regular season were hardly encouraging.

Jose A. Ferrer is achieving much better results with mostly the same tricks

Put a microscope up to Ferrer, and things will appear that aren't so flattering.

His 1.368 WHIP is a bit high for a leverage reliever, while his 7.6 strikeouts-per-nine rate is a bit low. He hasn't even been that effective when he's had the platoon advantage, as lefty batters are hitting a solid .325 against him.

To some degree or another, all of this cuts against the notion that Ferrer could be better as a Mariner than he ever was as a Washington National. He mostly resembles the same pitcher, even down to a pitch mix that is heavy on sinkers and changeups. The only noticeable difference is a mild uptick in sliders… which have been hit at a .417 clip thus far.

The two elements working together to keep Ferrer's ERA down anyway are his walk rate (1.4 per nine innings) and his ability to avoid hard contact (27.9 percent). Neither is a new trick for him, though even the latter still requires his defense to do its job behind him. It's been a struggle in that department so far, and that's understating it.

When it comes down to it, though, Ferrer's FIP and xERA are in the low 2.00s, putting them not far above his actual ERA. The numbers thus generally reaffirm the evidence of the eyes and ears that Ferrer has, in fact, become A Guy for Dan Wlson in the bullpen.

Until the pen gets healthy and generally shapes up, everyone is advised to keep those fingers crossed anyway. Without Ferrer, though, it's almost hard to fathom how much worse things would be.

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