Detroit Tigers' Peculiar Closer Shuts Down New York Yankees in MLB ALDS

Earlier this week The Sporting News' Matt Crossman accurately described Detroit Tigers reliever Jose Valverde.

"He is the least perfect closer to have a perfect save record. He never met a save he couldn't make difficult." 

So, allow me to add to Crossman's comments by stating that baseball fans must see more, much more, of Valverde in this year's MLB playoffs simply because we have yet to see enough of him during the regular season.  

That's right. We've yet to witness, rather, enjoy the full extent of this entertaining fire-balling oddity with the unorthodox delivery, surly scowl and CC Sabathia-type physique. 

Recently acknowledged as MLB's Delivery Man of the Year for his perfect 49-for-49 regular season save record, the 33-year-old Dominican-born Tigers reliever doesn't look a day under 50, and probably hasn't walked past a table full of desserts he hasn't devoured.  

Brash, garrulous and clunky at times, Valverde foists his unbridled arrogance onto the pitching rubber along with his substantial girth every time he takes the hill. He looks like the biggest bull in the china shop and comports himself like the baddest bully in the ballpark. 

He's the long-awaited ninth-inning entertainment that forces East Coast baseball fans to stay up til midnight to either cheer on this peculiar pitcher or heckle him unmercifully from the comfort of their sofas. 

Although Valverde's been even more effective this year than celebrated Yankees closer Mariano Rivera, his late-inning antics more closely mirror those of last year's MLB postseason's melodramatic and cantankerous closer—San Francisco Giants' Brian Wilson. 

Similar in personal self-absorption and baseball eccentricity, both save specialists storm the mound in October looking like they're eager to begin trick-or-treating in their own, individual quirky ways.

However, Wilson's brightly black shoe-polished beard of a season ago has been trumped this postseason by Valverde's smoke-lensed, Star-Trekish ski goggles and his black baseball uniform belt barely holding back his burgeoning belly and ornery persona.  

Add Valverde's high-kicking, robotic, twist-o-flex delivery and less than fluid transformer-like release with upper 90-mph velocity, and it's easy to see why he preserved his perfect save record by closing out the Yankees last night to win the 2011 ALDS.  

Valverde, as Crossman coined, "is the least perfect closer to have a perfect save record."

However, Valverde, as TBS has so eloquently advertised, is most assuredly embracing October and demanding the ball in the bottom of the ninth because, "this is where legends are made." 

Straight talk. No static. 

MIKE - thee ultimate talking head on sports! 

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