Joe Nathan has been majorly unimpressive for the Twins in the closer role, and has been (temporarily? permanently?) replaced by Matt Capps.
Ryan Franklin has been, if anything, worse for the Cardinals. He has one save in five opportunities–that’s right, he’s blown four, including today’s game, all games that the Cardinals went on to lose. The Cards are 8-8; they’d be 12 and 4 if he’d nailed down all five of those games, 11 and 5 if he’d blown just one.
Not a good year for closers along the Mississippi.
The Rockies have started out like a house afire, but closer Huston Street has the most deceptive stats in baseball. He leads the league with six saves in six opportunities and has a low ERA, but he has been anything but impressive.
Today he got in some work in the ninth with a four run lead, and what happened was a line single, a really hard liner to shortstop that resulted in the runner getting doubled off first, followed by another liner smoked down the third base line that was snared on a great diving play by Jose Lopez. Street really worries me.
Maybe it’s open season on closers in general. (Closed season on openers?? Never mind.)
Actually, I think it’s worse for Street than you’re suggesting. Didn’t he have a game against the Mets in which he got hit so hard in the ninth that they had to pull him? I think the Rockies held on to win anyway, so it didn’t count as a blown save, but 6 saves out of 7 opps seems more accurate than 6 out of 6.
Acta’s problem in D.C. was that his managerial philosophy is to let players work themselves out of their problems. But when the talent level is as thin as it was, you can’t afford to have a couple slumping hitters out there every day, and Acta would never bench anybody in favor of someone who might hit the ball.
It’s maddening. Every time you’re ready to deport the guy, he turns in a beautiful game like today’s. Then it’s half a dozen more where he pretty much just tosses BP. Maybe adjusting his throwing schedule is starting to pay off now, or maybe it’s the same old story with him once again.
Wonder if Mike Leake is trying to give the Reds a similar reputation to the Bengals.
This guy got a signing bonus of two and a quarter million dollars, and earns over $400K a year at age 23, and he feels the need to steal t-shirts from Macy’s.
That Leake story is just strange. Taking tags off of $10 T shirts? I thought that was something that a 15 year old boy might do. I wonder if there is some sort of mental illness involved?
Chris Carpenter, Cardinals:
4 IP, 8 H, 8 R, all earned, walked 3, struck out 4
7 IP, 5 H, 0 runs, 0 walks, 6 Ks
Fun stuff. I was in the park for Lee’s 3.1 IP game, and the Braves were just hitting the tar out of the ball…guess that wasn’t the case in the three-hit shutout.
I was originally dismayed because I didn’t want to be classified with the Expos. But, honestly, right now, it’s hard to see a downside to having control taken away from McCourt. Let’s pray that he and his ex are forced to sell the team so we can get on with some actual baseball in this town.
VERY happy that Selig took over. Only question is, what took him so fricking long?
Since last year in the divorce court, where the pre-pre nuptial was overturned, Frank McCourt looked like he was hiding money all over the place. The year ended with NO trade talks for anyone, yet the Dodgers were still well under the salary cap.
Now Frank gets a $30 million personal loan from FOX, claiming it’s to meet team payroll?? Who believes this crock, is maybe what Selig thought.
