Out to save face
Sox no closer to answer
MIAMI — The Red Sox have eight weeks to do whatever they want, to put on the safety goggles and splash chemicals into beakers with ultimate freedom on the heels of another lost season.
Who are they going to send to the mound in save situations?
Last night it was Junichi Tazawa, the team’s set-up man who has a career 2.59 ERA in non-save situations, but when the lights get brighter and the stage gets bigger in save situations his ERA swells to 3.84. He blew a 4-3 lead in the ninth as the Red Sox went on to lose to the Marlins, 5-4, in 10 innings.
“A little more tension,” Tazawa said. “But basically the job is the same.”
Red Sox closer Koji Uehara is 40, signed for just one more year and now out for the season with a broken bone in his wrist. There’s no clear heir to the ninth-inning throne, only a collection of relievers that form one of the worst bullpens in the majors.
Maybe the Red Sox could get creative.
Remind Joe Kelly that he was a closer in college, one of the best, and Kelly shrugs it off.
“That was amateur baseball, man,” he said.
Yet in 2007, his first year as a pitcher after playing the outfield at Corona (Calif.) High School, he led the University of California Riverside with a 1.32 ERA while collecting six saves and winning the Big West Conference Pitcher of the Year award.
“That was a long time ago,” Kelly said.
Then in his third collegiate season, he won another Pitcher of the Year award while saving 12 games and setting the career record at UC Riverside with 24 saves.
“I haven’t done that in a long time,” he said.
In the majors, Kelly has a career 4.08 ERA as a starter and a 3.25 ERA as a reliever. But he made his point clear: He has no interest in closing.
“As of today, on Aug. 11, no,” he said. “That’s not even in the back of the my mind.”
Why so dismissive? Being a closer didn’t suit him, he said. He remembers his arm hurting all the time in college. He remembers shut-down periods of two or three weeks. He remembers tendinitis and inflammation.
“I didn’t really like it too much,” he said. “I liked it but every single year I was going through arm problems just from the amount of outings I was getting. I don’t know if it was because I’m brand new to pitching or if it was that many appearances that were giving me some arm problems. . . . It was something that was always in my head in college.”
The Sox are short on starters anyway, and while Kelly has a 5.96 ERA this season, the team believes he’s capable of better than he’s shown out of the rotation.
Sox manager John Farrell never mentioned Kelly’s name as a possible replacement for Uehara, instead saying that Tazawa, Jean Machi and Ryan Cook could be used in save situations.
Here’s one more idea: Matt Barnes. The flame-throwing Barnes is back in the rotation again at Triple-A Pawtucket, but how valuable could a stint as the Red Sox closer be for his development?
Just across the dugout from the Sox last night, the Miami Marlins had one of the best closers in the majors in A.J. Ramos (18 saves in 23 chances, 2.57 ERA), who won’t be a free agent until 2019.
“It’s a huge find,” Marlins manager Dan Jennings said. “Those last three outs for whatever reason seem to be the hardest to get.”
Miami drafted Ramos out of Texas Tech in the 21st round in 2009, 18 rounds after Kelly, and made him a closer in the minors right away. The Marlins made Ramos get saves of five to seven outs, hoping that would simulate the type of intensity he could face trying to get three outs in the ninth in the majors.
“We were getting him ready,” Jennings said.
The Sox haven’t done that in that minors. Now they have a chance to see who can handle the job on the biggest stage.
Tazawa is 0-for-1.