It
has been a very quiet week at the back end of baseball’s
bullpens.
There
was movement in Oakland last night however as Huston
Street recorded
his first save
since coming off the DL last month. Alan Embree had been
doing a very good
job in Streets absence and continued to hold the job longer than we
expect
after Huston’s return from an ulnar nerve injury.
Last
night however Embree gave up two runs in the 8th
to let the White Sox pull to within one run of the A’s at 3-2
setting up Street
for a perfect ninth to close out his 10th save of
the year, his
first since May 6th.
In
29.2 IP this season, Huston is fanning 10.9/9 while
walking 2.73. Opponents are hitting just .185 off him, helped a little
by his
favorable .274 BHIP% (still, his career rate is .280). That
K rate is actually up from his fine rookie season where
he fanned 82. while walking 2.99. Huston does not throw a ton of GBs
(0.96
career) but he keeps the ball in the park (0.4/9 career) and punches
people
out.
He
seems healthy. He has the closers skill set. Street
should resume his place among the above average closer options.
Dave
Trembley’s handling of the end of the Orioles game with
the Yankees on Wednesday pretty much spells out his mind set. Handed a
3-0
game, Danys Baez gave up
hit to the
first two batters he faced before recording a strikeout. That left
lefty Bobby
Abreu as the tying run at the plate. That prompted Trembley to go to
lefty Jamie Walker. He got
Abreu on a GO to
1B but Walker
then gave up a 3-run HR to right handed hitting Shelly Duncan. In other
words,
Trembley out managed himself. By the way Baez was tagged with two runs
as a
result.
This
tells us that while Baez is still the primary closer,
Walker will be used in a lot of situations where a left hander is
called for …
whether it’s called for or not. Baez
has a career 0.85 HR rate while Walker’s
is 1.27. And while Baez has a 9.22 ERA in 13.2 IP vs.
LHH this year allowing 1.9 HR/9 this year, last year he had a 3.00 ERA
vs. LHH
over 27 IP, allowing 0.6 HR/9 (in 2005 he had a 3.29 ERA vs. LHH in 34
IP,
allowing 0.7 HR/9).
Walker
this year has a 3.27 ERA vs. LHH allowing 0.8 HR/9. Last year he had a
3.32 ERA
vs. LHH in 21.2 IP allowing 1.2 HR/9. In 2005 he had a 3.71 ERA vs. LHH
in 26.2
IP allowing 0.6 HR/9
Walker
has been more effective when we talk OBA vs. LHH but we are probably
talking
less than 100 batters each season. The point is that there is little
evidence
that Trembley was significantly better off changing to Walker despite
the lefty-lefty matchup. True
Bobby Abreu is hitting just .217 vs. LHP this year in 120 Abs but he is
not
incapable vs. lefties. Last year he hit .293 off of lefties and in
’05 he hit
.275. And with one out there was a very good possibility that Shelly
Duncan was
going to get a shot even if Walker
got Abreu out, which he did. Duncan
is hitting .353 vs. lefties in his first 17 MLB ABs against them with
an .882
SLG% and a 1.303 OPS. He has 6 hits vs. LHP and 50% of them have been
HRs.
Trembley
could have seen it coming, and he probably over
managed the situation. Meanwhile
Mo
Rivera
took the loss in this game giving up 3 runs in the 10th inning on
three hits including an Aubrey Huff homerun. Mo has now allowed 5 runs
in his
last 3.1 IP on 9 hits, 0 walks and 2 Ks.
He
was asked the question last night and denies any arm
issues. One of the great closers of our time, Mo’s indicators
are still solid.
He is fanning 9.1/9 while walking a career-low 0.87. His HR rate is
0.6/9 this
year, a little higher than his 0.4 career rate but still pretty spiffy.
Opponents are hitting .262 off him which is high (.220 career) but
he’s
suffering from an unfavorable .339 BHIP% this year, much higher than
his .270
last year, .254 ’05, and his .279 career BHIP%.
Mo
has converted 19 straight save opps, his numbers look
gook. No need for anyone to panic here.
Brian
Fuentes
return from the DL on Wednesday going two outs and allowing a hit and a
walk
while striking out 2. Manny
Corpas
owners need not be concerned at this point. He has closed out 9
straight save
opps and he is punching out hitters (7.5/9) and throwing GBs (2.28).
That GB
ratio is a lot higher than his GB rate in 2006 (1.32). He can throw GBs
but it
seems unlikely he can sustain that rate. Corpas might nag you with a
walk or
two (2.8/9) but his numbers are good. Manny
is being helped by a favorable BHIP% (.268) which is
holding his OBA down (.221), as well as a favorable strand percentage
(84.2%)
which accounts in part for his 2.24 ERA. We do not have enough history
to
really project where those indicators are going to settle when they
correct.
For now, know that Manny is maximizing his skill set with some help
from those
two columns. I do not how much worse things could get, but it is hard
to
imagine his performance level rising from here.
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