So tonight after a rather nice outing by Gavin Floyd, Ozzie decides to give him a crack at the CG in the 9th, but a leadoff single to Jeter gets him pulled out of the game.... for Matt Thornton?

To Matt's credit, he managed to get an out.... on a sacrifice by Granderson. Then he faces Teixeira, who gets turned around to bat righty (if I recall correctly, he's a better hitter from the left side?) and then Thornton promptly walks him, setting up runners on first and second with one out. Then and only then are we treated to an appearance by the man who should be closer, Sergio Santos. Unlike last night where Santos shrugged off a couple of basehits and promptly got outs, this time he gave up two screaming line drives to good hitters in A-Rod and Cano which were handled by Lillibridge, who Ozzie proclaimed his new closer.

Going forward, even with tonight's edge-of-seat action, I think you've gotta go with Sergio Santos here. The two outs he recorded have brought him up to 11.2 innings of scoreless ball, with a 14/5 K/BB ratio and only 7 hits in those 11.2 innings. Last year Santos seemed to give up roughly one hit per inning along with a fair amount of walks, but his nice K rate allowed him to maintain a 2.96 ERA despite an ugly 1.53 WHIP.

It seems that Santos has gotten better as a pitcher, and right now the fact that he seems to have the desire, the balls, and the wipeout pitch requisite for being a closer tells me that this guy should be given the ball in the beginning of the 9th inning with nobody on... not with 2 guys on in the 8th, and especially not with the winning run on first with 1 out in the 9th after another Thornton failure. I'm personally sick of seeing Matt Thornton come into games in the 9th and fail, thus destroying the confidence of an important cog in this team's bullpen machine. Thornton was a sure thing as a setup man, and has consistently done a good job with that role. I think he's proven that he doesn't have the chutzpah to be the guy in the 9th, whereas Sergio Santos still has that first-round-draft-pick swag from his SS days, not to mention he wants the damn ball because he knows he's going to get the job done.

Give that man the closer title, then sort out the pen and put the guys in roles where they can succeed. Sale will very likely improve on his 5.79/1.39, the strikeouts are already there, and Jesse Crain has proven that he can be a nice setup guy. As Terry Boers said in between the usual cavalcade of uhhs and stammers today, it makes your life as a manager much easier when you have a 9th inning guy that provides a foundation for the rest of the bullpen to be built on. Thus, I'm calling for Ozzie to stop overmanaging and just give Sergio the damn ball in a normal closer fashion the next few times and I'm pretty damn sure that the results will be good enough to finally put this closer situation to rest.

What thinkest thou, oh brain trust of thee CSFMB?

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I wonder what in the hell is wrong with Kenny Williams....He trades for STIFF Teahen and gives him a contract extension without him playing an inning for the Sox....They announce that Thornton is the Closer and give him a contract extension without ever seeing him pitch a 9th Inning in 2011.....
What happened to Reinsdorf's "Pay for Play" salary theory?

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This is a sinicalypitic post that I completely agree with (and have been screaming for all spring).

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Youve been screaming for a Sinicalyspe post?

We have seen enough of Thornton throwing everything up there but a strike.

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WOO LIFE!!!!

No, the Santos part

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I don't want a situation where the 9th inning is automatically Santos'. I think he should get the majority of the save chances but I also want Sale in there when the matchups work.

But isn't the ideal concept of a closer having a guy who kind of transcends the concept of matchups? Right handed, left handed, or even someone who straddles the plate and swings the bat out from under their package, you want someone who's going to say "fuck this, fuck you, i'm going to fuck your little world up"

I remember Marmol getting interviewed by B&B when he first started having success in the bullpen; Bernstein asked Marmol what he's thinking when he's out there throwing that crazy shit at the hitters and Marmol chuckled and asked "...for real?" Bernstein replied yes, so Marmol started laughing as he said "you have no chance!"

That's the kind of attitude you want... the majority of bullpen guys tend to be somewhat of a crapshoot from year to year, but ideally you want a guy out there who's just itching to get into that game because he knows that all bullshit will cease once he toes the rubber. You can't tell me right now that Thornton or even Sale is coming out there laughing like "hahahah these guys are screwed" if anything, they seem a bit anal retentive about it... especially Thornton. They're trying to hard to make perfect pitches and hit their spots that it's causing them to get people on base, which ratchets up the pressure, and then as if a fait accompli they score.

When Sergio got runners on base Monday, he shrugged it off and got the next hitter out. That 1-6-3 double play on Teixeira was the goods, especially when Granderson led off the inning with a real solid single. Santos then dropped A-Rod with a slider in the dirt and then it was handshake time. That's what I want in my closer, dammit.

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Yes

Santos appears to have the stuff to get guys on both sides of the plate.

I disagree with Keyzer's matchup theory. That never works anyway.

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Oh yeah, the other thing that pisses me off is this talk about how Sergio has only been a pitcher since 2009 so they don't want to "overload" him by making him the closer... HE'S ONLY BEEN PITCHING SINCE 2009! THERE'S NO WAY HE CAN BE THE CLOSER!!!

fuck that. HAS THE CINEMATIC MASTERSTROKE "ROOKIE OF THE YEAR" TAUGHT US NOTHING?!?!

I don't care if it's some random drunk asshole running on the field in the middle of an inning, grabbing a ball and getting the hitters out. I don't care if a certain pitcher's parents were both standout pitchers forced to reproduce by a secret government program meant to churn out optimal athletes (like China did with Yao Ming), nor do I care if it was foretold in local legend and folklore that some goofy baseball jedi master saw the potential there in A ball but he has to pay his dues by being a middling reliever for 3-4 years before he's "ready" for the job.... IF THE MOTHERFUCKER GETS THEM OUT I DON'T GIVE A SHIT IF HE'S AN AL QAEDA DEFECTOR, JUST GET THOSE GODDAMN OUTS!

I mean, seriously, 11.2 innings of scoreless ball with 14K and a whip that's circa 1.05 and it's all "he might not be ready" ???! Does this guy have to blow Don Cooper to get a little more respect?! jesus!

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Marmol didn't have a whole lot of experience as a pitcher before he started closing.

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Santos hasn't reached the point where he can be trusted in every situation. Few pitchers have that's why the closers 'role' is so volatile. I'm not saying anything bad about Santos, I love the guy I just don't think he's earned the 'I'm going to him no matter what' role. Yet.

Marmol was a C/OF in 2002, putting up really blah numbers... then they decided to make him a pitcher, and he was a middling SP in the minors. He didn't have the excellent K rates he now has in the big leagues, he'd just trot along with a ~3.5 ERA and just under 1K/IP.

When he showed up on the Cubs he was a bad (6.00+ ERA) starter who walked 59 people in 77IP. I remember Steve Stone saying at the time that Marmol needed to be in the bullpen because he was the closer of the future.

When Lou showed up in 2007, they put him exclusively in the bullpen and he managed a 1.43 ERA striking out 96 in 69 innings. Granted he had to wait for the first Kerry Wood era to close out, and then for Lou to grow out of his Marmol-Security-Blanket phase... but once he was told "hey Carlos, you're the closer" he took off and hasn't really looked back. Call it a hunch he probably would have been just fine closing out games in 07 or 08, hell, he seemed to get messed up being below Kevin Gregg in 09.... then once he became the closer, shit, only he can beat himself.

If the White Sox really think anointing Sergio Santos as the closer would cause him to shit himself and mentally break down and be ruined as a pitcher, then why the fuck even bother flirting with the idea now? In the immortal words of Larry the Cable Guy "GIT'R'DONE!"

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agreed

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How do you know you can't trust Sergio Santos in these situations? Yeah, last year he did give up a bunch of hits and walks, but from what I've seen this year from the opening of spring training all the way to last night, he's handled himself fine. Look at Matt Thornton, here's a guy who aced just about every possible examination before being anointed the closer, then once he got handed the job he proceeded to go and shit himself once he got up there. He had been a spot-closer in the past, but even last year when Jenks was fat and bad, man, they were going to Sale for some saves... why would Ozzie do that last year when they were hanging around still technically able to chase down the Twins and make the playoffs?

It's baptism by fire, man.... there have been plenty of good pitchers who can't close, and there have been plenty of meh-to-bad pitchers who can close... Rod Beck comes to mind. How about that 2 year stretch when junkballer Danny Kolb was inexplicably effective? I'm saying with Sergio's stuff, seriously, given what we've seen from the Sox' bullpen where just about everyone ahead of him in the depth chart has systematically failed, what the hell is the problem?

I'm really hoping that Ozzie is playing coy with Santos... I'm thinking he knows Sergio is the guy, but this is akin to when Beckham showed up in spring training 2009 and Ozzie was like "Who's this Bacon guy? If he's our savior then our team really is going to be shit" Maybe all this talk of caution and OH WE'LL SEE WHAT MATCHUPS ARE COMING is just meant to temper Sergio's head from getting all huge to the point where he's showing up in the pimpmobile like Dayan Viciedo? That's what I hope, anyways...

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It's early enough in the season that he should be getting the shot. Everyone else has seemed to fail at this point.

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Santos will blow his share. But he's probably the best option right now. Thornton looks like a deer in the headlights every time he takes the mound. If you think about it, Santos blew the game last night. He just got lucky that Lillibridge was playing the outfield instead of the tougher position of first base.

I don't like the idea of a left-handed closer. There have been a few good ones, but obviously, far more hitters are right-handed.

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Frodo was playing Right field. We were talking about left field, orr. Don't change things around to suit your own point of view.

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Okay genius, outside of throwing- which didn't come into play- why is right any more difficult than left?

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

Angles, ball comes off the bat different when righties hit to RF than when they hit to LF, ball slices and hooks differently going to RF and LF....

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You've got to do better than just throwing out some non-scientific science when you're arguing with me, Frank.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

The Sox have a 1 run lead in the bottom of the 9th with Mauer and Morneau coming up: who do you start the inning with?

You want to use a lefty there? Okay. Now, how many times do you think that situation is going to actually occur. I bet it never happens this season. How about that?

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

The whore whom I have paid good money to be with for the next hour?

The Daily Show?

A nice cigarette?

Sergio Santos?

I'm definitely not trotting Thornton out there at this juncture.

edit: remember when Don Baylor managed the Cubs and he was completely neurotic over THE BIG BOOK OF BASEBALL RULES, like, Julio Zuleta could have a 2-3 game stretch hitting .500 with 2HR and 5RBIs and because a RHP was starting the next game it HAD to be Matt Stairs?

Sure, these tendencies exist for a reason.... but here's my question: what do the Yankees do with crusty old Mariano Rivera in that situation? The Red Sox still trot out Papelbon, right? I reckon this year's Tampa Bay Rays would still shuttle Kyle Farnsworth to the bump.... there comes a point where RH/LH shit doesn't matter, just put someone out there who you think is a good enough pitcher to get the job done.

If you're the Cubs, do you bring out Sean Marshall because, gasp, IT'S MAUER AND MORNEAU?!?!!

Incidentally, using the M&M Boys this year is a pretty shitty example since they're not really that daunting of a 1-2 punch to deal with. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, didn't Santos handle Teixeira batting LH on Monday night? There was a 1-6-3 DP if I recall correctly...

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Chris Sale made Mauer look absolutely silly last year.


I am willing to bet that at least once this season the Sox are up 1 run on the Twins in the 9th (or in extras), and the Sox have to face the heart of the Twins order to get the win.

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And I'd take that bet. Regardless, the off-chance that it may occur in one game shouldn't be the deciding factor on which your bullpen is arranged.

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Anybody here seen my old friend Bobby?
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up to The Hill
With Elon, Tulsi, and Don

You're damn right you use Chris Sale and if you use him in that situation then you use him in other similar situations as well.

Eric Gagne's consecutive saves record would have been like 150 if the Dodgers had the balls to trot him out there when left handers were due up the next inning.

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You'd be silly to take that bet because it will happen at least once. I agree that you shouldn't arrange your bullpen for the whole year based on one matchup...though that is the primary reason the Sox signed Will Ohamn

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