and it looks like May is coming around
Dodgers closer Edwin Diaz is out for several months due to needing elbow surgery. He’s expected to return sometime in the second half of the season.
His ERA so far is 10.50. Not what you want in a closer.
With some luck, Jeff Hoffman will get injured too.
Another disastrous outing for Devin Williams. I’m so glad the Yankees didn’t keep him.
Same here. I was unhappy when we first got him.
Well, to be fair I thought he might be OK as a setup guy, but he wasn’t even up to that.
Williams leaves the bases loaded in the top of the 9th down 5-3. Austin Warren comes in and looks unhittable striking out three straight. Then the Mets are mowed down three up three down the bottom of the 9th. 12 losses in a row.
Williams came in to the 9th with a tie game. Couldn’t throw strikes. Faced 5 batters couldn’t get one out.
Juan Soto should be back next game. Maybe that will spark something.
Same thing as last year. He was ok (just ok) later in the season when he was able to throw strikes. He just falls behind on every batter and it just gets worse and worse. He walked 3 in the 9th tonight.
Up 95 a bit the Yankees blank the Red Sox. Very good outing for Luis Gil.
KC snaps a 8-game losing streak, scoring the winning run in the bottom of the ninth…on a wild pitch. Royals improve to 8-16, 1/2 game better than the Mets.
Their offense is terrible.
Devin Williams hasn’t been the same since the Alonso homer in the 2024 wild card series. He was an elite reliever in Milwaukee: 1.83 ERA over six seasons, averaging over 14 Ks per 9. The walks were always there, but manageable because he gave up so few hits. The hits started coming once he got to New York.
Why did the Mets do that goofy contract with him? He gets some portion of his salary in installments between 2036 and 2045. WTF? I guess they wanted a new Bonilla day.
Edited post because the exact numbers involved in the Williams contract are confusing.
Jeff Hoffman is similar to Williams. Another disastrous outing last night, just amazingly bad, but Louis Varland bailed him out. (Varland is been invincible.)
I know the Jays are paying Hoffman a lot of money but it’s reached a point of being absurd, a case of a team sort of denying the obvious to save face. He may soon go on the injured list for a vague “injury.”
It’s not the hits it’s the walks. He’s effective if he can get his fastball over as a strike then they chase the “airbender”. He seems to be afraid to throw a fastball and the airbender is so far off the plate or low that no one is chasing it.
It’s the combo, really. His walk rate was lower with the Yankees than it was the previous four seasons in Milwaukee.
Then he got really lucky in Milwaukee. You can’t be a effective closer and routinely give up free base runners. I saw it all last season. He would come in and walk the first batter then fall behind with everyone after that. His last outing for the Mets was walk, walk, safe on a fielders choice sac bunt, bloop single for only one run and walk for a run. 5 batters, no outs, 3 walks.
With the Brewers, he was giving up a fair amount of walks, as noted, but not a lot of hits: from 2022-2024, he averaged only 4.3 hits per 9 innings (league leaders in H/9 average around 6; a closer like Williams doesn’t throw enough innings to qualify for the leaderboard on that stat). His WHIP in those three seasons was consistently right around 1.000. He got away with the walks because he wasn’t getting hit often.
Since leaving Milwaukee, he’s giving up hits.
The Royals have unveiled plans for a new ballpark and mixed-use development in downtown Kansas City, in partnership with Hallmark Cards; Hallmark would also be building a new corporate headquarters as part of the project.
No one gets “really lucky” for 5.5 straight seasons. His WHIP over that period was 1.023 - that’s not a lot of free base runners.
He did get injured the season before the move to the Yanks, seems like he just didn’t recover.
Also the shelf life on most closers has never been all that long. If he had 5 great seasons, that is probably better than average for a closer.
I am a lifelong fan of both the Royals and Chiefs. I am totally against their plans for new stadiums, even though the Chiefs ballpark will be in my home state of Kansas. I have long felt that the location of their current stadiums, which share massive parking lots and located next to two interstate highways, is the best in the country. Plus, the stadiums themselves are both fan-friendly.
But, once again, I was not consulted in the decision-making process.
Which is what I have tried to tell Yankee fans over and over. Mariano was a freak of nature never to be seen again. He had a career WHIP of 1.00 over 19 years. His final year his WHIP was 1.047. If you get 2-3 years of effectiveness in a closer you’re lucky. Yankee fans expect the closer to be Mariano. That’s never going to happen. I hope Bednar is effective this season but I’m seeing things I don’t like. He’s not going to be the long term solution.