It didn’t take long for Nationals manager Matt Williams to reveal his next closer.
Two days after Rafael Soriano blew his seventh save of the season and fifth since the All-Star break, Drew Storen emerged from the Nats’ bullpen in the ninth inning of Sunday’s 3-2 win over Philadelphia and set the Phillies down in order.
For fans weary of watching Soriano’s ineffectiveness in recent weeks, a scoreless inning, let alone a clean one, was a welcome sight. Now it will be up to the Nats ‘ one-time closer to show he can hold onto the job and handle it in the pressure of the postseason.
Many pitchers can be effective as closers in the short term, but few have the temperament or stamina to be the go-to guy in the ninth inning season after season. That’s why Mariano Rivera, Dennis Eckersley, Bruce Sutter and Lee Smith were so valuable.
Soriano had closed at least 50 games in four of the past five seasons before this one and was on pace to do so again. He had saved at least 40 games in three of those seasons. Other good closers have broken down under similar workloads. Take Jim Johnson, for example. He led the AL in saves for Baltimore in 2012 and 2013 but is now struggling to be relevant in Detroit.
Soriano’s advanced stats show he was extremely lucky in his stellar run up to the break, when he had an 0.97 ERA and held hitters to a .153 average. His batting average on balls in play was .207, and 2.2 percent of the fly balls he allowed went for home runs. He also stranded an incredible 90.9 percent of runners. Given the his career BAbip of .257, HR/FB ratio of 6.6 percent and stranded runner percentage of 66.2 over 13 seasons, it’s clear that rate of success was unsustainable.
Those numbers for 2014 have already regressed to about Soriano’s career level, and his luck has run out in more ways than one. Jayson Werth’s dropped flay ball last Wednesday against the Dodgers was one kind of bad luck. Ben Revere’s home run on Friday night was another.
Players have to know that the manager has their backs after a tough game or two. Williams stuck with Soriano as long as possible under those circumstances before it became clear something had to be done.
Now Soriano is out for a few days to analyze his mechanics. Maybe he and pitching coach Steve McCatty will find a flaw and fix it. In the meantime, the job seems to be Storen’s to lose.
Storen was the team’s main closer in 2011 when he saved 43 games and had a 2.75 ERA, holding batters to a .204 average. He was hurt for most of the season in 2012 before replacing an overtaxed Tyler Clippard at the end of the season and saving four games.
Nats fans may still be nervous about Storen’s disastrous appearance in Game 5 of the 2012 Division Series, when he could not close out the Cardinals after twice having them down to their last strike. They may foret that he appeared in three other games in that series without allwing a run. He was the winning pitcher in Game 4. But after a rough start to 2013, Storen was sent to the minors to work out his own problems.
Since returning and adjusting to his 7th inning role, he has held hitters to .218/.276/.297 with a 1.37 ERA. His BAbip of .264 is actually higher than the .247 mark he had in 2011. His stranded runner percentage of 66.7 is in line with his numbers throughout his five-year career. Although his HR/FB ratio is 3.6, below his career mark of 5.7, it’s safe to say he’s pitching within himself. Storen also turned in a gutty hold in a 3-1 win over St. Louis on April 18, showing he may have slayed the demons of 2012.
Soriano still has value, and his bad run of recent weeks is just as unsustainable as his good run in the first half. If he can work out any mechanical issues, he will still be a key member of the Nats bullpen in the postseason.
But as long as Storen keeps closing games, he deserves a shot at keeping the job he once held, and possibly further redeeming himself as a postseason pitcher.
