Thank Goodness Mariano Rivera Closes For My Team

The past 24 hours have been chock full of TGMRCFMT (or Thank Goodness Mariano Rivera Closes For My Team). To really appreciate him, you have to look at what other teams are dealing with:

TGMRCFMT (USA Today)

Mariano Rivera: We talked about this earlier today. Last night Rivera came on with a one-run lead and promptly gave up a triple. 3 players coming up with a chance to tie on an out. Tie game, right? Wrong. The Great Mariano played Houdini and got three quick outs. Mariano Rivera's opponents (in his career) have had 14 ABs w/ just a runner on 3rd representing the tying run--those batters are 0-14 with 0 RBI. When leading after 8 innings, the Yankees are 60-0. He may not win them all, but with a 1.06 ERA, a WHIP of 0.709 and 5.14 SO/BB he's having one of the best seasons of his career at 40. Not bad.

Neftali Feliz: The guy the Yankees completed their comeback against last night? Neftali Feliz, the All-Star closer who is 3rd in the American League in saves and hadn't blown one since May 11th. The Yankees may face Feliz (and his set-up man Frank Francisco who they tattooed this week) in the playoffs but now with the confidence they can come back against them.

Francisco Rodriguez: K-Rod made headlines off the field--though not that far from it--allegedly knocking out his father-in-law in the Mets family room after the game and getting himself arrested, according to the Wall Street Journal. Deadspin shows that he's been a ticking timebomb for some time and K-Rod is infamous for yelling or blowing off the media at times as well. Bob Klapisch tweeted last night: "Telling that M. Rivera never liked K-Rod. Asked that K-Rod not be given a nearby locker in AL (Yankee) clubhouse for 2008 All-Star Game." Amazingly, Jay sent me this ESPN article with a new Mets logo last night--which he points out was made before the incident in the clubhouse last night.

Jonathan Papelbon: HardballTalk's Craig Calcaterra has the details on this latest choke. The Red Sox closer took over a 5-3 game in the 9th against the Blue Jays, a team who he was 24 for 24 in save opportunities with a 0.82 ERA. After the Blue Jays rallied to tie the game and loaded the bases, they actually pulled Papelbon (after only getting one out) for Daniel Bard who in an impossible situation gave up a sac fly to lose the game in a walk-off. According to Baseball-Reference's Play Index, Mariano Rivera has only 7 games like Papelbon did today with 3+ earned runs, a blown save, and his team lost (and Rivera has had none since 2007). According to B-R's PI, this is the third time Papelbon has done that very same thing this year (and one was against the Yankees). That doesn't even mention his meltdown in the American League Division Series vs. the Angels last season. And even when he does save one, it seems like Papelbon is always walking the tightrope. Red Sox fans are starting to get loud about being excited about a change in guard at closer for 2011

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My All-Star Team: National League Pitchers

So far we've covered the hitters from the American League, the hitters from the National League, and the American League pitchers, so now we'll try to tackle the National League pitching. Again, we'll use some of the same criteria we used in the American League to dwindle down the competition until we find the winners. 8 starters, 5 relievers. And since I may have erred in leaving Jose Valverde out yesterday, we'll start with the relievers today (for some reason, Baseball-Reference hasn't updated from last night so we're missing the Arthur Rhodes blow-up and any other pitching performances from last night in the analysis):

Relievers: Again, 25 innings pitched qualifies you for our All-Star pickings so 66 National League relievers are in our mix to start things out. We'll start as we did yesterday by eliminating anyone with a 3.50 ERA or higher. So say so long to 20-save man Francisco Cordero (4.25 ERA), 15-save Octavio Dotel (4.85), Wilton Lopez (0.88 BB/9 but 3.52 ERA), Rafael Betancourt (6.6 SO/BB but a 5.33 ERA), Joel Hanrahan (13.07 K/9 but 4.26 ERA) or Arizona's closers from 2010 Chad Qualls (8.88 ERA) or Aaron Heilman (3.51 ERA). That eliminates 31 players to quickly chop the relievers list to 35 as we try to get down to 5.

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Jerry Manuel vs. Lou Pinella: Which Manager Has a Worse Disadvantage?

The gauntlet has been thrown. Jerry Manuel took our first Stupid Call of the Week by throwing K-Rod for 100 pitches in the bullpen and Lou Pinella fired back with the second Stupid Call of the Week by moving Carlos Zambrano to the bullpen. So I decided to pit manager vs. manager to see who has a worse disadvantage at doing their job. Is it "Sweet" Lou Pinella and his band of lovable losers, the Chicago Cubs? Or is it Jerry Manuel and his unlucky group of New York Mets? Best of 7. Let's get to it!

	Jerry Manuel	Lou Pinella	Dis-Advantage
GM	Omar Minaya - What can you say about Omar that hasn't already been said? Oliver Perez. Lack of bench depth. Tony Bernazard. Lack of starters. If the Adam Rubin press conference didn't do him in, you wonder what will finally end the misery?	Jim Hendry - One hamstringing contract after another. Alfonso Soriano. Milton Bradley. Now Carlos Silva. Also, surprising lack of NLCS appearances despite playing in weak division and weak league and spending plenty of money	This one goes to Jerry. Minaya's public spat with Carlos Beltran put this one over the top this year.  1-0 Jerry
Team Curses	You wonder if breaking ground on Citi Field is going to be this team's ultimate downfall. 2006 NCLS breakdown, two seasons of losing on the last day of the season and then last years debacle	The Billy Goat. Merkle's Boner. Steve Bartman. Collapse after collapse and bad fortune after bad fortune. A century of losing. The team has tried to sacrifice goats on Harry Caray's statue and it hasn't even worked. And there's even an "Ex-Cubs Factor"	This is all Sweet Lou. Now that the Red Sox and White Sox won, it's the Cubs all alone. The Indians haven't won in 60 years and it looks like nothing compared to the Cubbies. All tied up at 1

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The Stupid Call of the Week: Mets and K-Rod

Starting a few new series this year and this is one of them: "The Stupid Call of the Week". This is where an umpire blows a call, a manager or general manager makes a horrible decision, a player has a huge brain fart, or a fan does something so stupid, they have to be called out on it. Today's culprit is the New York Mets and their manager, Jerry Manuel. Amazingly, the move didn't get called out by many people (ESPN's Adam Rubin barely mentioned it in this article dissecting the entire game), but it was definitely the stupidest move of the past week.

What move was that, you may ask? Well in that 20-inning game the Mets played against the Cardinals this past weekend, Jerry Manuel had Francisco Rodriguez warm up multiple times during the extra-inning affair. He warmed up so many times that he threw 100 pitches in the bullpen. 100! K-Rod came in with a dead arm and promptly gave up the lead. He was warming up EVERY INNING from the eighth through the 19th. The entire Mets bullpen was used as K-Rod continued to throw. Incredible.

FanGraphs' Matthew Carruth reacts:

Amazing, just plain amazing. Forget the idiocy of holding your supposed best reliever back for a possible future lead for a moment and just soak in the stupidity on the part of whoever had Rodriguez up and throwing for 11 consecutive innings.

On the plus side, I think he’s stretched out now so the Mets can go ahead and get Oliver Perez out of the rotation.

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Mets K-Rod Collapses With Spasms

Scary Stuff. From the New York Post:

There was a wild scene outside the Mets New York Mets ' clubhouse after tonight's 3-2 win over the Red Sox when closer Frankie Rodriguez collapsed from back spasms and required medical attention.

Rodriguez suffered the back spasms -- the first of his career, he said -- while running in pregame warmups and was unavailable to pitch the ninth inning.

The Mets gave K-Rod muscle relaxers, but he collapsed shortly after trying to leave the clubhouse under his own power. Rodriguez started weeping from the pain after being helped into a golf cart, and a stretcher and EMTs were called to the scene.

Team officials then closed the gate in front of Rodriguez, preventing reporters for further observing the scene.

The Mets later said Rodriguez was taken to a local hospital by ambulance but offered no further update on his condition.