It didn’t take long for us to get our first look at how Bruce Bochy plans to set up his mostly new bullpen.

After Nathan Eovaldi went six strong innings, allowing just two runs, the Rangers turned things over to the pen in the seventh in a tie game.

Robert Garcia came on for the seventh and struggled to find the strike zone after getting the first two Red Sox hitters out.

After walking two straight, Bochy turned to Chris Martin, who was warming up to pitch the 8th inning.

Martin had the strongest performance of any Ranger reliever on opening day, getting the last out of the 7th to preserve the tie game and then finishing a scoreless 8th, all while allowing just one hit.

Luke Jackson got the first crack in the closer role with the game tied in the 9th and wasn’t able to get through as he allowed a walk and a single before giving up the game-winning home run to Wilyer Abreu.

After Jackson failed to get out of the inning, Shawn Armstrong came on and got the last two outs of the 9th.

Now that we’ve established how things went in the bullpen, what does it say about how it could be deployed the rest of the season?

For starters, it’s very important not to put too much stock into what happened on Opening Day. Obviously, if the likes of Garcia and Jackson pitch the way they did in their respective roles, they won’t stick there but you can’t make that assumption off one game.

You also have to consider the fact that the likes of Jacob Webb, Hoby Milner, and Armstrong didn’t pitch meaningful innings.

Point being that there really isn’t too much to distinctively take away here, as there usually isn’t on Opening Day.

Finding roles in the bullpen is going to take time and in order to do that, certain guys are going to have to fail.

If you take away anything, let it be the way Chris Martin is utilized and how he performed in his given role.

Despite him having the most prior success of any Rangers reliever, Bochy didn’t automatically throw him into the closer role.
Martin continued in his 8th inning role where he has been so good for so long in his big league career.

There is no doubt that if Chris Martin continues to perform the way that he did on Opening Day, he will be in that role for the foreseeable future.