​If you had just a little bit less than five months, you win the prize. The question? How long can a pretty good team last with no bullpen? With smoke and mirrors and grit and perseverance, they held in there for a long time. The bullpen was never good, but for most of the year it was largely functional. My concern all along ended up being well founded. The dynamic offense was covering up a lot of weaknesses. Through the whole first half of the season, the team largely wasn’t playing any “standard” type of game where the team is leading after six and hands it to the bullpen. When you pair that with a mountain of injuries, no pitcher really ever settled into any kind of role. Then, around midseason Jacob Webb got insanely hot. He was the less heralded of the two offseason bullpen acquisitions. Phil Maton, long since gone to injury after months of ineffectiveness, was the one with the pedigree. Maton has a contract that runs past this year. I’m sure Cub fans will welcome him back next year with open arms and minds. Alas, that’s a conversation for another day. But Webb, he dominated for a couple of months there. And for a second time, this team covered for their ineptitude in the bullpen. To give credit where credit is due, the Cubs probably found a half dozen guys this year who I find really intriguing. The problem was, every single one of them got overexposed. They all ended up in bigger roles and in bigger situations than was intended for them. Some of them succumbed to injury, some to ineffectiveness and only one or two remain mostly effective.As the season has worn on and the games increasingly the games feel like postseason games, the bullpen is increasingly exposed. The result is a heaping handful of late season blown saves. I say that with some irony. I’ve defended the team a fair bit. The blown save statistic gets more and more useless as teams go to relievers earlier and earlier. If you are spouting Cub blown saves, I’m always going to ask you if you are aware of the fifth inning blown save in what I believe was a 2-1 game. What decade was it when you expected any team to allow a reliever to throw 4+ innings in a one run game? In my best sarcastic voice, I can’t wait for a team to use two openers and then a bulk guy. That would allow the guy who pitches the largest number of innings to potentially be credited with a save in relief for someone who only faces a few batters in relief. I’m sure official scorers don’t want more decisions on their plate, but they should absolutely be given discretion as to if a blown save applies. The rule of thumb? Was it plausible that the reliever would finish the game?Rant aside though, dating back to the Mariners series, there have been a whole series of legit blown saves. Of course there were some legit ones before that, but since that series in Seattle, it has felt like every save was blown. That’s not true. When I stop and think for a minute, I remember Ryan Zeferjahn’s save clearl