The Agony of the Blown Save

The great thing about baseball is that it is a game that has been played essentially the same way for over a hundred years, yet new things happen all the time. And often, when something happens for the first time, it happens again mere hours later.

That was the case over the first round of the Division Series playoffs, which are all now concluded. Never before had a team won a series-clinching game after being down by two runs and down to their last out. The Angels did it on Sunday, getting to Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon, scoring three in the top of the ninth after two were out to sweep the Bosox. Then, the next night, the Phils, also down by two with two out, tallied three to end the Rockies' season.

In fact, all four series featured a blown save by an exalted closer. Had they all held serve the complexions of these series might have been much different. The bullpen horrors started on Thursday in game two of the Cardinals-Dodgers series. Adam Wainwright of the Redbirds had hurled a great game, and Trevor Miller got an out in the bottom of the ninth. The ball was turned over to Ryan Franklin with out out in the ninth with a 2-1 lead. He got a quick out, but leftfielder Matt Holliday played James Loney's liner off his cup and Loney ended up on second. Franklin would end up walking two and allowing two hits, including a bases-loaded single by pinch-hitter Mark Loretta to win it for L.A.

Clearly the goat was Holliday, but Franklin bears a great deal of responsibility. He could have bore down and got out of the inning and sent the series back to St. Louis even, but had a complete breakdown. The one thing a great closer can not do is lose the strike zone and put guys on. In any event, the Dodgers shut the Cards down in game three on Saturday for the sweep.

On Friday night in game two of the Twins-Yankees series, Minnesota closer Joe Nathan took the mound in the bottom of the ninth with a two-run lead. He let up a single to Mark Texeira and then Alex Rodriguez crushed a pitch to tie it. The Yanks would end up winning in the bottom of the 11th on Texeira's tracer home run to left. Had Nathan closed the door, the Twins would have gone to Minnesota even, and who knows?

On Sunday the Red Sox looked like they were going to escape a sweep, being up by as many as four runs. The Angels hung in there, though. Papelbon came in in the eighth with two on and the Sox up 5-2, but allowed a two-run single to Juan Rivera (the runs were not charged to Papelbon). But the Sox got out of it, picked up an insurance run in the bottom of the frame, and headed into the ninth with their closer on the hill and up by two. The Sox have had a history of coming back in series, beating the A's and the Indians after being down 0-2, so it looked like this was going to be a series after all.

But things turned sour, and again it was with two out. The big hits were a double by Bobby Abreu and then a two-run single by Vlad Guerrero, but walks again proved deadly. The Sox were also victim to a classic TV graphic jinx: mere seconds after the announcers told us that Papelbon had never been charged a run in a post-season game, the stat became obsolete (shades of the time in '85 when a graphic said that Ozzie Smith had never hit a home run left-handed, and then promptly did just that to propel the Cards past the Dodgers). The Angels closer, Brian Fuentes, did his job in the bottom of the ninth and Red Sox fans were doomed to another dismal winter (and weren't helped when the Patriots lost to the Broncos later that afternoon).

Finally last night, in a very entertaining game, the Rockies fell victim to bad-closer-itis. They had pulled a little magic of their own, coming back from a run down to notch three in the bottom of the eighth to take that dreaded two-run lead. They had their closer, Huston Street (I've seen his name misspelled as Houston Street, which is a byway separating Greenwich Village from Soho in Manhattan), on the mound. He got one out, and then Jimmy Rollins got an infield single. But he got the tough Shane Victorino. The key at bat was Chase Utley, and Street walked him, which turned out to be costly. Ryan Howard then crushed a double to right to tie it, and then Jason Werth volleyed a soft single to score Howard.

Four blown saves in this first round, but none of them belonged to beleaguered Phillies reliever Brad Lidge, who came in the bottom of the ninth to save it for the Phillies.

If one thing has changed in the century-plus of modern baseball, it is the use of the closer. In the old days, relief pitchers were either over-the-hill journeymen or young players. They were not specialists, and starting pitchers were expected to pitch entire games. That changed for good in the seventies, when Rollie Fingers and Mike Marshall came along. But the use of the closer evolved even further in the eighties, when a closer was really only asked to pitch one inning, and save totals mushroomed. The greatest closer of this latest era is Mariano Rivera of the Yankees, but it shouldn't be forgotten that he has been imperfect, blowing three saves in the post-season that cost his team a series: to the Indians in '97, the Diamondbacks in '01, and the Red Sox in '04. For all the greatness of Rivera, there are significant blemishes on his record. Being a closer is not for the feint-hearted.

I was three-for-four in my predictions, failing to anticipate the collapse of the Cardinals. I'll root for an all-L.A. World Series (given that the Series will go five days in November, I imagine it would make things a lot easier for everyone if that panned out). It's hard to justify imagining the Yankees not winning it all, especially since A-Rod is hitting (maybe Kate Hudson can bottle whatever she's giving him), but I'll go out on a limb and predict that the Angels can somehow do it. The Dodgers look awfully tough, and with Cole Hamels not looking sharp for the Phils, I think L.A. wins this rematch of last season's NLCS.