Pennant primer: No relief for Joe Nathan, other closers
It only seems like some contender's closer blows a save in the ninth inning every night.
For the record, they skipped Monday.
Two more ninth-inning jolts Tuesday ratcheted up the drama level in each league's playoff races and that doesn't even count the unlikely double-barreled end of one of the season's more remarkable bullpen success stories.
But this season is deteriorating into one of the more remarkable studies in ninth-inning frustration among teams that otherwise believe they're poised to win in October.
The run-wracked résumés of Detroit's Joe Nathan and St. Louis's Trevor Rosenthal got new negative entries Tuesday though their teams held onto division leads – albeit the two closest division races in the majors. And one of those races would be even tighter this morning if not for a couple of Kansas City setup men both allowing their first runs in nearly three months.
Memo to would-be World Series winners: It just doesn't happen without virtually infallible closers.
In fact, over the past seven seasons, the closers for the teams that won each year's World Series are a combined 38-for-39 in playoff save opportunities during the postseason they won it all.
The only exception was San Francisco's Brian Wilson in 2010. He was charged with a blown save in Game 2 of that year's Division Series against Atlanta and we'll unashamedly slap an asterisk on that one because the bearded one entered the game with two on and no outs in the eighth inning … and the tying run was unearned because of an infield error.
Oh, and the Giants eventually won that game.
Finding candidates to carry on the recent tradition is becoming difficult.
Nathan has a share of the blown saves lead among big league closers – moving back into a tie with the Twins' Glen Perkins moments after Perkins took the lead by himself. Nathan's No. 7 was somewhat tainted but still results in the Tigers' especially gut-wrenching 4-3 loss at Minnesota.
If there's anything more startling about Detroit's season – still a game and a half better than second-place Kansas City – than the veteran Nathan's struggles, it's the unexpected offensive heroics of outfielder J.D. Martinez.
And there was J.D. with a three-run home in the top of the ninth that was an apparent game-winner that would add another game to the Tigers' division lead. Ah, but there was J.N. giving it back with some help from his friends.
Nathan can plead guilty to the one-out walk to Trevor Plouffe that started the trouble, but center fielder Ezequiel Carrera's ill-advised dive turned Kurt Suzuki's line drive into a game-tying double and set up the Twins to win on Aaron Hicks' bouncer that didn't get out of the infield.
Rosenthal's blown save was his sixth, a more cut-and-dried ninth-inning walk, double and sacrifice fly that let the not-quite desperate Milwaukee Brewers position tie the game and position themselves for a 4-3, 12-inning victory that kept them within a game and half of Pittsburgh for the NL's second wild-card spot. The Pirates also got to within 2½ games of the Cardinals.
The short-term significance of that game is Milwaukee remaining positioned to make good use of its three-game weekend series in Pittsburgh.
The broader implication, though, is the continued ninth-inning epidemic among good teams.
Eleven closers – defined as pitchers who lead their teams in saves – have at least five blown saves so far this season. Of the 11, five are on teams currently holding playoff spots and a sixth is Milwaukee's Francisco Rodriguez.
Two of them already have been exiled from regular ninth-inning duties -- Washington's Rafael Soriano (seven blown saves) and San Francisco's Sergio Romo (five). The other is Kenley Jansen of the Dodgers, who's had just one of his five blown saves since Aug. 1.
The closest thing to ninth-inning certainty among contenders is the 42-for-44 performance by Kansas City's Greg Holland. (Huston Street of the Angels and Fernando Rodney of the Mariners are next at three blown saves.)
But the Royals never got to Holland on Tuesday because the Chicago White Sox won 7-5 on three seventh-inning runs against relievers Kelvin Herrera and Wade Davis.
Herrera got the loss after allowing his first two runs since June 24, a streak of 31 innings. Davis, who was charged with a blown save, had a scoreless streak one day shorter but two-thirds of an inning longer than Herrera.
Who's up tonight?
PENNANT PRIMER
Days left in season: 12
Wednesday's big mover: Seattle manager Lloyd McClendon says it's too late in the season to attempt to make sense of his team's better record on the road (43-29) than at home (38-40). Considering the Mariners are trying to hang in the AL wild-card race, maybe their current 11-game tour of Anaheim, Houston and Toronto isn't so foreboding. A 13-2 rout of the Angels on Tuesday was all the more stunning considering Seattle's 14 total runs over its previous eight games and AL-low .675 OPS for the season. Seattle is just a game behind Kansas City and two behind Oakland, the teams holding the two AL wild-card spots.
Wednesday's big loser: They're barely a footnote to the playoff races at this point but it's worth noting the Atlanta Braves are under .500. And they're still second in the NL East, helping explain why first-place Washington beat its Baltimore neighbors by mere minutes Tuesday to become the season's first official division winner. Though the Braves ate 75-76 and on a five-game losing streak, their elimination number (the reverse of a magic number) in the wild-card race still is seven.
Today's can't-miss game: Brewers at Cardinals. It's the best pairing of the day strictly based on the teams' position in the standings but there's added intrigue in the pitching matchup because Milwaukee's Mike Fiers will be making his first start since being shaken by shattering the face of Miami's Giancarlo Stanton with a pitch. Fiers has been a late-season boost for the Brewers rotation, but there's no room for baggage or trepidation, especially with stingy Adam Wainwright pitching for St. Louis.