Another day, another blown save. That's been the story for the 2011 Minnesota Twins. Between Joe Nathan early in the season, and Matt Capps shortly thereafter, the Twins have been having a very difficult time showing confidence in their closers. With Saturday night's blown save and subsequent loss against the Milwaukee Brewers, the Twins ran their total to 17 of 30 in save opportunities this season. Something to think about, especially for a team sitting nine games under .500 for the season. Imagine what those additional 13 games could mean in the standings, considering the Twins are only 8 games back of the Cleveland Indians for first place in the American League Central.
So, exactly how important is it to have a reliable closer in baseball? It's something we've heard about for many years, that having that "terminator" type hurler at the back of the bullpen is a must for any team considering a run at the World Series Championship. Would you believe that in 2009, the Phillies advanced to the World Series after having blown a total of 22 saves during the year? Strangely enough, the 2010 Texas Rangers blew 20 saves and still made it to the World Series, only to go down to the San Francisco Giants. Are saves really the end-all-be-all when it comes to making it into the playoffs? For that matter, are closers even really that important?
With the roller coaster ride that's been the Twins' season thus far, it's obvious that it hasn't been just the bullpen that has cost them many games. It's also fair to say that they are where they are in large part to the bullpen's ineffectiveness throughout the first half. Nathan and Capps have both been the reason for many nervous stomachs in Twins Territory, but the middle relief has been equally to blame. In fact, during the Twins 8-game win streak earlier in June, it almost seemed clear to everyone that Ron Gardernhire and Rick Anderson had such little faith in their bullpen that the phrase "pitch count" seemed to escape both of their vocabularies. We saw pitch counts in the 110-120 range for almost all of the starters at one point during that stretch. Kudos to the starters for putting the team on their backs and throwing some of the best baseball they have in a long time. But at some point, the bullpen needs to hold its own.
Given Capps recent tendency to give up the lead late, it seemed as though Gardy was sending a message on Sunday afternoon, handing the ball to Glen Perkins to close the game out. His reasoning was almost as nonsensical as the defense's closing arguments in the Casey Anthony murder trial. His explanation for allowing the left-handed Perkins to face Prince Fielder of the Brewers was more about the "match-up" than it was about a lack of confidence in Capps. Really? Since when do you play the match-up card when dealing with closers? I'm sure we'll hear the same logic from Joe Girardi of the Yankees when he decides to lift Mariano Rivera for the left-handed Boone Logan to face two lefties in the top of the ninth.
The save is the most over-rated statistic in all of sports. The object in baseball, as in any sport, is to win the game. What I've never been able to figure out is why the idea of match-ups are forgotten when it comes to closers. As fans, we can sit and watch managers come in and out of the dugout three or four times in the seventh or eighth inning, going from lefty to righty to lefty again based on which side of the batter's box the next hitter steps in to, yet, in the ninth inning, we will see that same manager bring a right-handed closer into the lineup to face the middle of a team's lineup comprised of all left-handed hitters. Really? So...the match-ups don't matter now? How does that work?
What the Twins need to do is just win games. If that means playing the match-up game in the ninth inning instead of giving the ball to either Capps or Nathan, then that's what Gardy needs to do. The closer-by-committee option isn't a bad one, it's just not the norm.
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