It’s An Issue: Soria Blows Save, Royals Fall To Rangers Again
K.C. closer Joakim Soria’s issues this year have been well acknowledged as of late, including his most recent gaffe in which he couldn’t get it together in Baltimore and ultimately took the loss, serving up a 2-run walk-off homer to Adam Jones.
On Sunday, in the Royals weekend rubber-match with the Rangers, Kansas City jumped out to a 5-2 lead in the 4th inning. The bullpen coughed up the lead, but a scrappy offensive 9th-inning, capped off by an Alcides Escobar RBI sac fly, gave the team a 7-6 lead as manager Ned Yost put the ball in Soria’s hand to close out the contest.
Well wouldn’t you know it but the first batter to come to the plate, outfielder Nelson Cruz, looked at just four pitches before crushing the fifth, a hanging slider, deep over the wall to tie things up at 7 and tag Soria with yet another blown save.
Things got worse from there: a base-hit by Mike Napoli set up short-stop Elvis Andrus to drive in the former Angels catcher, Napoli, on a liner past the first-base bag which resulted in a bizarre miscue at the plate wherein K.C. back-stop Brayan Pena inadvertently took too long to tag the runner (the cut-off throw from Eric Hosmer to home beat Napoli by a good 3 seconds). Nevertheless, that was that, and Soria walked off the field having found himself unable to convert his latest save opportunity.
The question now becomes, how long will Kansas City stick with Joakim Soria as ‘the guy’ trying to finish off games in which they lead?
Highlights from the game, including Andrus’ strange game-winning hit, are available here courtesy of MLB.com:
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2011_05_29_kcamlb_texmlb_1&mode=video
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[...] time the Royals saw them was ‘giving away’ games through their bullpen, not unlike what Kansas City is experiencing now with Joakim Soria. The Angels no longer find themselves mired in a closing controversy, as rookie flame-thrower [...]
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Sounds way too much like Frank Francisco and the Jays’ closing situation.
On that topic – why is it that most closers tend to have just a few years of success compared to starting pitchers/position players? Is it something related to adjustments? Or is it a completely different factor in play?
I guess just because it’s a position that requires dominance… Then again, you’ve got your Mariano Rivera’s of the world. Just extremely rare.