What is a Bullpen Game? Definition and Examples
A bullpen game is a game a team plays without a traditional starting pitcher, instead covering all nine innings with a sequence of relievers each throwing one to three innings.
What is a Bullpen Game in Baseball?
A bullpen game is a game in which a team deliberately uses no traditional starting pitcher and instead covers all nine innings with a chain of relievers, each working one to three innings. Nobody is asked to go five or six frames. Instead the manager scripts a relay — maybe a long man for two innings, then three or four matchup arms, then the regular high-leverage relievers to close it out. The goal is to get 27 outs from pitchers who are each fresh, throwing max-effort stuff, and facing hitters as few times as possible. Teams turn to bullpen games when a rotation spot is open due to injury, a doubleheader, an off-day-compressed playoff schedule, or simply because the available starter is worse than a committee of relievers.
How a Bullpen Game Works
There is no formula — a bullpen game is a roster-management decision, not a stat. The structure is built around the times-through-the-order penalty: hitters perform dramatically better the second and third time they see a pitcher in a game (often 30-50 points of OPS worse for the pitcher each time through). By cycling pitchers every two innings, a manager ensures most opposing hitters never see the same arm twice. A typical script: a bulk reliever or "piggyback" arm throws innings 1-3, a second multi-inning arm covers 4-5, then three single-inning specialists handle 6, 7, and 8, with the closer in the 9th. Managers also weaponize platoon splits, slotting a lefty to face a left-heavy stretch of the lineup.
A bullpen game differs from an opener strategy: an opener uses one reliever for the first inning only, then hands off to a "bulk" pitcher who functions like a starter for four-plus innings. A bullpen game has no bulk starter at all.
Worked Example
The 2018 Milwaukee Brewers, under manager Craig Counsell, rode bullpen games deep into October. With a thin rotation behind Jhoulys Chacín, Counsell repeatedly attacked the postseason with relief committees, leaning on arms like Josh Hader, Corey Knebel, and Joakim Soria to navigate lineups two and three relievers at a time. Milwaukee pushed the Dodgers to a Game 7 in the NLCS largely on the strength of this approach. The Tampa Bay Rays, who popularized the modern opener in 2018, also run true bullpen games regularly — in a single afternoon they might use six pitchers for roughly 1.5 innings each, none facing a hitter more than twice.
Why It Matters
Bullpen games let a contender survive a missing or weak rotation slot without surrendering a game. In the playoffs, where off-days let relievers reset, they are a legitimate weapon rather than a desperation move. For fantasy and DFS players, identifying a scheduled bullpen game is critical: there is no startable pitcher to roster, win probability is fragmented across arms, and saves/holds get unpredictable. For front offices, the strategy reduces the premium on back-end starters.
Limitations and Misconceptions
A bullpen game taxes the relief corps for days afterward — using six arms today means a depleted pen tomorrow, so teams cannot run them back-to-back. It is not the same as a "bullpen day" caused by a starter getting knocked out early; a bullpen game is planned in advance. It also is not automatically a sign of a bad team — elite clubs use them strategically. Finally, it does not guarantee run prevention: fresh arms still walk hitters, and stringing together six clean innings from relievers is hard.
Related Terms
In Legends Deck, every card carries an endurance and a reliever-role rating, so building a winning bullpen game is a real in-game decision. Stacking multiple high-stuff, short-burst relievers lets you script a committee that minimizes the times-through-the-order penalty baked into the simulation engine — but overuse drains stamina and leaves your pen exposed the next game, exactly like the real thing.