Closer Talk

Last night the Blue Jays lost to the Rays on a B.J. Upton walk off home run. This was a game that saw the Jays strand 7 runners on base and only get 7 hits themselves. You can look at both of the starting pitchers, Wade Davis and Jo-Jo Reyes, as to why this was the case. Both pitchers kept their teams in the game and when Reyes left the game after 6 innings of 4 hit, 1 run baseball the Blue Jays had a 2-1 lead.

Shawn Camp and Marc Rzepcynski pitched two innings of flawless relief and as the practice goes, the doors to the bullpen opened and the “current” closer, Jon Rauch came in for the save. The generally accepted “baseball-ism” is that you use your closer in save situations only (up to a 3 run lead in the 9^th inning). Interestingly enough, on most teams the closer is also the team’s best relief pitcher. Right now the Jays sport a trio of closers comprising of Jon Rauch, Frank Francisco and Octavio Dotel. Rauch is the only one of these three that is in the top four of some pretty important categories for relief pitchers.

WAR

Camp
Frasor
Villanueva

Batting AVG. against

Villanueva
Rzepcynski
Frasor

BABIP

Villanueva
Rzepcynski
Rauch

Inherited Runners Scoring %

Camp
Frasor
Rauch

So before Blue Jays fans throw Jon Rauch under the bus the way they did last night on Jays Talk with Mike Wilner, don’t forget that right now, our best relief pitchers don’t have jobs that give them the chance to lock down the 9^th inning for us. That should be the issue, not a guy who is 5 for 6 in save opportunities this year.