Good call.
I decided to stick with him, and he got the W, going 6.2 innings and giving up 1 run (unearned) on 4 hits.
Woohoo Rockies 3-1, good pitching, great hitting in all situations, and they have faced about the best pitchers the NL has to offer. So, there is no doubt I guess… 
(Last year they never got to 2 over even for what its worth )
A really good closer doesn’t walk a batter. Period. To say nothing of allowing a batter to steal third, for goodness sake.
I guess that’s why, when you look up the 2008 stats for Mariano Rivera, Jonathan Papelbon, Francisco Rodriguez, and all the other best closers in the game, there’s a big, fat zero in the BB column.
This is rather silly.
Well Mo did have only 6 last year in 70+ innings and only 244 in 1024 innings lifetime. 
True.
I was just looking at the BB rates for some of the games best closers, and the number of walks issued by closers varies considerably. Some of the very best closers in the game do, indeed, issue very few walks. As you note, Rivera gave away only 6 last year, while Jonathan Papelbon gave up just 8. But the fact is that not every team can have one of these guys, and a typical full-time closer last year (AL and NL) gave up somewhere between 20 and 30 walks.
Kevin Gregg has had a bit of a walk problem his whole career, especially the last couple of years. He gave up 37 in 2008. But no-one has ever argued, i don’t think, that Kevin Gregg is the next Mariano Rivera. He did blow 9 saves last year, and hasn’t started this year in exceptionally promising fashion.
Anyway, i never said that Gregg pitched great yesterday. He allowed a walk, and then hung one over the plate that got smashed to left. I was just saying that he should have gotten away with that one, because a good outfielder would have got to the ball and made the play. The play goes into the record books as a run-scoring double, and Soriano doesn’t get an error, but the left fielder was at least partly responsible for the result of that pitch.
Sounds like the one run that Andy Pettitte got charged with yesterday. It should have been an error on Nick Swisher but instead the KC Scorekeeper recorded it as a hit and RBI and therefore an Earned Run.
Every year there is usually a large number of earned runs that happen as in baseball you never assume the double play even when the ball was clearly a double play ball.
It looks like the Indians are about to go 0-6. Too early to panic, but that’s gotta smart.
Missed the edit window, but that’s 0-5, sorry.
a) If you don’t recognize a bit of hyperbole in making a point, not much I can do. 
b) The Cubs, if they are ever going to get out of their perpetual Lovable Loser syndrome, have to see themselves as the sort of team that must have a Rivera or Eckersley or etc. as a closer. Instead, they keep handing the job to people who are tantalizing as possible closers, but who simply don’t manage to seal the deal. The current situation is frustrating because the job was going to be Marmol’s, but then Gregg pitches lights out all Spring, and gets the job handed to him. Then, the season starts and already we see chinks in the armor. Not just the blown save last night, but before that, the tenth inning of the second game against the Astros.
Just frustrating. :mad:
Let’s go O’s!
The Birds have scored 5 in the first, and there’s still no outs.
A very bad loss today for the Texas Rangers. They really need to beat up on the hapless Tigers and they’re going to be lucky to grab one game out of three. While yesterday’s game was an embarrassment, today’s game was well within reach.
The Marlins are also putting up a pathetic game tonight against the Mets. 4-0 doesn’t mean you will go 5-0. You’ve got some speed so show it.
OK, DSYoungEsq, you can really complain about the Cubs’ bullpen now.
They managed to tie the game 3-3, courtesy of a bad call at first base, where Soriano should have been called out for an inning-ending double play.
Then the bullpen walked three in a row and gave up a two-run single.
That’s the Sabathia we were expecting. 7 2/3rds, 0 R, 6 H, 6 K, 0 BB.
That was a good one, especially after Pettitte yesterday.
BTW: The AAA club, Scranton is off to a great start of 3-0 with a lot of hitting and good pitching for most of them.
Yes, but that’s the middle relievers. Middle relievers are always notoriously inconsistent. That’s the trouble with them. If they were consistent and durable, they would start. If they were consistent but lacked durability, they would close or set-up. 
Notice who DID save the game for the Cubs.
Getting a big name closer isn’t usually how World Champions do it.
The 2008 Phillies had a great closer but they picked him up in part because the guy had looked a little shaky for a few years.
The 2007 Red Sox had given their closer’s job to a kid.
The 2006 Cardinals’ closer, Jason Isringhausen, didn’t really have a great year.
The 2005 White Sox had a guy, Dustin Hermanson, who had a half year’s experience as a closer, was years removed from his last good season, and never pitched well again.
The 2004 Red Sox acquired a successful closer, Keith Foulke.
The 2003 Marlins had… uhh… Braden Looper?
Anyway, I could go on but won’t. Championships ofter make famous closers, just as often as famous closers make championships. You can’t blame the Cubs losing LAST year on their closers, can you? They won the division easy despite having a middle-of-the-road quality closer and didn’t play well enough against LA in the NLDS to make their closer matter.
Good pitchers make good closers; despite the yammering about “Closer mentality” IMHO if you’re good you’re good, if you’re bad you’re bad, and people put too much stock into small data samples. The Cubs will either get lucky in their choise or won’t.
Stop trying to confuse me with facts! My mind is already made up!!!
Yeah, the “closer” gimmick is over done and the Cubs didn’t lose because of Wood, but this was still a stupid move in the off-season. Wood was better than middle of the road, he was easily a top 10 guy and was still adjusting to the role. The Cubs, for some strange reason, preferred to give up a solid prospect and pay Gregg $4.2M for one year than sign Wood to a hometown discount for a 2-year deal that might have been somewhere in the range of $9M.
Last year with Marmol and Wood we had one of the best 8th and 9th inning situations in the league. It’s baffling that they’d give up a prospect with a pretty live arm for a one-year arbitration guy with terrible peripherals and dump a key guy (and fan favorite) from the 2008 team that won 97 games just to save $5M. There’s no way they thought they’d be better with a Gregg-Marmol tandem than a Marmol-Wood one.
It was stupid then and it’s stupid now.
Don’t believe the Tigers are for real. The Rangers have just been horrible this weekend.
The D-backs need a win today to take 2/3 from the Dodgers this weekend. They got good news since it looks like Brandon Webb is ok. The D-backs aren’t going to be able to compete if they lose Haren or Webb for any amount of time.
Very nice win today for the Florida Marlins. Josh Johnson with a complete game. I’ve heard him mentioned as a sleeper Cy Young candidate. Way too early to tell, but, he’s been impressive. With the super competitive NL East, you don’t want to let any team get too hot. The Phillies are losing to the Rockies as I type this.