Ryan Pressly Keeps Grinding, Daniel Palencia Excelling with New Fastball Shape
Ryan Pressly hasn’t earned a save since April 13 against the Dodgers and was demoted as the closer following a disastrous outing in which he gave up nine runs (eight earned) without recording an out against the Giants on May 6. The offense wasn’t doing him many favors by building several big leads and eliminating save opportunities, but Pressly’s inability to miss bats was bound to bite him at some point.
It wasn’t until his Sunday outing against the Reds in which he struck out all three batters he faced that Pressly had punched out multiple batters in a game. That also got him back to having more strikeouts (13) than walks (11) on the season, which is something he desperately needs to continue improving upon. That said, his results have actually been a fair bit better than the process might lead you to believe.
Pressly hadn’t allowed an earned run in 10 appearances prior to his implosion and he’s not allowed one in nine since. Even if he doesn’t earn back the opportunity to shut games down, his presence in the bullpen is part of what has made that unit a strength following its shaky performance early.
A big part of the reason Pressly won’t be picking up saves anytime soon is that Daniel Palencia has picked up — and maybe even improved upon — where Porter Hodge left off. The stout righty is averaging 99.2 mph on his fastball, up a tick from the past two seasons, and he’s getting a little over an inch and a half more arm-side run on it than last year. It’s almost like a turbo sinker, and he’s locating both the fastball and tight slider more effectively.
Not only is his zone rate up about three ticks to 54.5% this season, but Palencia is getting ahead with first pitch strikes far more frequently. After being around 56% over parts of his first two seasons, he’s up to 64.1% through 19 appearances in 2025. That has boosted his strikeout rate and lowered his walk rate, making him a far more reliable reliever.
For years, we’ve been begging the Cubs to find relievers who throw gas in the zone. For years, they’ve failed to do so for one reason or another. Now they’ve got both Palencia and Brad Keller at the back end of the bullpen slinging darts. They’re going to need all the help they can get with 26 games over the next 27 days, so Craig Counsell may have to spread the high-leverage opportunities around.
Who knows, maybe we’ll even see the emergence of yet another unheralded reliever here in June.
