this is when you need a new closer

The Phillies lost to the Red Sox today. That fact alone isn't such a bad sign... the Sox are a solid team with one of the best offenses in baseball. Sometimes you're just going to get out-slugged.

The problem is in how the Phillies lost today. Going into the ninth inning, they had a 9-7 lead. José Mesa, the Phillies closer, walked the first batter of the inning. Not such a hot start. He got the next batter to line out, but then proceeded to allow two hits and throw a wild pitch. Coupled with an intentional walk in there, Mesa allowed a run to score and left the bases loaded for Turk Wendell coming in to relieve him.

I like giving players the benefit of the doubt. But Mesa just hasn't had consistently good stuff this year. Hell, his ERA is 6.13. Mesa rarely works more than an inning per appearance, so it's probably better to think of that as being 0.68 runs/inning pitched. To put that into perspective, the two top closers in the National League, Eric Gagne and John Smoltz, have figures of 0.16 and 0.10 respectively.

Now not every team is going to have a Gagne or a Smoltz. But when your closer is averaging a run every other appearance, you're going to lose some games you should have won. That's not the way to win a wild card race...