Friday Closer Notes

Written by

Jeff Erickson

Published on April 17, 2009

Brian Bruney continues to establish himself as the Yankees' #2 guy in the pen - particularly in the wake of meltdowns by Jose Veras and Damaso Marte the day before. Meanwhile, the main CLE set-up guys (Jensen Lewis, Rafael Perez) continue to disappoint. I suspect Perez, if healthy, will recover. I'm not yet sure about Lewis.
The Cubs can obfuscate all they want about Carlos Marmol/Kevin Gregg. It doesn't take |STAR|that|STAR| long for a reliever to warm up, unless there's an injury. Gregg says his knee isn't a problem, but the "... Marmol was already warming up ..." excuse is lame - let's call it what it is. Marmol is the better pitcher.
Ryan Madson is the one that got the loss and gave up three runs today, but I'm more concerned about Brad Lidge, who hasn't looked good yet. He gave up three hits in his scoreless inning tonight.
Matt Capps is bullet point #7,562 in the argument that early spring training results are almost meaningless - after walking the first four batters of the spring, he's been nearly perfect in the regular season. For him, it's just a matter of getting regular work - he went eight days without pitching before throwing an inning on Thursday.
How frustrated must you be if you're in an NL league and your closer combo is Jose Valverde and Joel Hanrahan? No save opportunities prior to tonight, yet both blow their first opportunities.
Francisco Cordero is bullet point #7,563 in the "spring stats are meaningless" argument.
Chris Perez further muddled the Cardinals' bullpen picture this afternoon. Ryan Franklin actually gained a little bit of security today - more because of the walk to Aaron Miles than the homer by Alfonso Soriano.
Please try to forget that I kinda/sorta touted Brandon League as a potential replacement for B.J. Ryan. That train has left the station.
Ditto Danys Baez - a closer-in-waiting doesn't pitch the fifth inning.
Todd Coffey had another nice outing - plenty of time for me to tout him, just to see him fail later. In that game, Seth McClung pitched the ninth in a tie game. I know that Carlos Villanueva struggled in his last outing (though no thanks to the official scorer, who ruled that a four-hopper off the chest of Bill Hall was a hit - because there are no such thing as errors these days), but why was McClung pitching the ninth?
Troy Percival got the save, but once again, it was ugly, allowing two baserunners before getting the final out.
Both Angels closers-in-waiting (Jose Arredondo, Scot Shields) failed on Friday night, though Arredondo might have suffered from a quick hook. Mike Scioscia also screwed up, bringing in Jason Bulger instead of Brian Fuentes in the critical eighth inning, with lefties Justin Morneau and Jason Kubel due up. Once again, managing by the save rule prevented the closer, and theoretically the best reliever up against the best hitters, from getting into the game when it mattered most. Time to cue my buddy Joe Sheehan to express his righteous indignation about appropriate bullpen use (and in case it's not clear, I wholly agree with him).
Jonathan Broxton got the five-out save tonight - coming in when it mattered most. |STAR|That|STAR| is how you do it....
David Aardsma pitched the eighth to set up Brandon Morrow tonight - once again, he's the next in line, and with the M's protecting Morrow's health assiduously, Aardsma might get more save chances than other set-up men.