It’s Closing Time in the MLB...Or Is It?

Bringing closers into a game too early, or in a non-save situation, is, by far, the worst move that a manager can make in the major leagues.

It does a number of things when they give up a lot of runs or lose the game: it lowers the self esteem of the closer and the team moral (the team possibly feels they cannot trust the closer), upsets the fans (and who wants to do that?), and raises my fantasy stats (not the good kind of raise).

This year there have already been two examples of managers making this mistake: Lou Piniella bringing in Kerry Wood for the Chicago Cubs and Charlie Manuel bringing in Tom Gordon (who is currently the closer while Brad Lidge is on the DL) for the Philadelphia Phillies.

And it was Opening Day...or should I say Opening Week?  

The Kerry Wood situation is the most puzzling to me because Lou Piniella’s biggest concern is the health of his players, especially Kerry Wood who has been on the DL more times than I am able to count (and I know how to use a calculator). Pinella’s goal is to get Wood’s arm strength up in the beginning of the year and then slowly move him to pitching in days close in session.

So why did he bring Wood into the game in the ninth inning when the score was 0-0? 

There is no reason to bring in your stopper in this situation, especially when you’re not trying to use him in days that are close together at the beginning of the year. Is there some magical ball in the dugout that Pinella looks into to know that he’s not going to need Wood to close out Wednesday's game? 

Charlie Manuel basically did the same thing, putting Gordon in in the ninth, except the score was 6-6. Gordon gave up five runs on four hits in 1/3 inning to the Nationals (no that’s not a typo), which, at the conclusion of the game, gave him a 135.00 ERA for the day/season.

I’m not just picking on these two baseball geniuses, but all managers in baseball. Last year there were two very distinct examples of how detrimental this idea is to a closer, namely Mariano Rivera and Joe Borowski.

April 27, 2007 the Yankees are losing to the Red Sox 7-4 and Rivera is warming up in the bullpen, probably doing side work. When the bottom of eighth finishes Rivera seems to be picking up his stuff to sit back down because he is probably done with his side work, but instead of sitting, he’s making his way out onto the field.  

I know what you’re thinking, “Well they’ve probably used up a lot of their bullpen and Rivera was the only person left to finish out the game, even though there’s no chance for a save.”

This would be true except that Torre had only used three other pitchers besides the starter so far in the game, and the day before Torre used two of the same people he used in the current game. There are fresh arms in the pen. 

Now you’re probably thinking, “He probably needed to get his work in. How many days has it been since he has pitched in a game?” 

This is probably your best argument because it had been five days since the last time he threw in a live game situation, but this, in my opinion, is the worst idea I have ever heard of in my life!

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