Closer Comfort Factor

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Hush.

[Guest AG/DC]

SteveJRogers wrote: ="AG/DC"] Closer tandems rool. Chances are Jesse is on the mound because Roger just pitched in the 6th through 8th.

Steve, you're really far out on the ledge here. You're welcome to demonstrate how chances are this is true. I'll happily bet $100 that, not only are chances that it was untrue, but I'll go so far as to say it never happened. I might as well join you on that cold and lonely ledge. Let's see which one of us falls.

SteveJRogers wrote: And vice versa.

$200.

SteveJRogers wrote: Plus as seen with the Red Sox, "closer by committee" is a horrible, horrible way to do a bullpen.

You are just the King of the Red Herring here, aren't you?

(1) I don't care about Jose Mesa.
(2) I don't care about Mitch Williams.
(3) I don't care about the Red Sox.
(4) Nobody said anything about "closer by committee."
(5) The Red Sox success for half a season demonstrates nothing, as you're continually reminded to stop brandishing anecdotes and insisting anything conclusive can be drawn from them.

SteveJRogers wrote: Heck the Yankees had to let a former CY winning reliever go because they forked a whole lot of cash to a flavor of the month. You think Steinbrenner was going to allow his new toy to go in every other day or work if Sparky Lyle didn't get the job done?

(6) I don't care about the Yankees.

SteveJRogers wrote: I only bring that example up because I heard Gossage explain that he had hoped that would be the way it would have worked out with a two-headed closer.

What else happened at Yankee Fantasy Camp?

SteveJRogers wrote: It's like having two starting QBs, you really don't have one.

(7) No, it's not.
(8) I don't care about football.

Now, that you've steered this everywhere but where you were, are you going to support the assertion that Benitez "does not have anything on the good side of the ledger" or are you going to surrender?

[Guest AG/DC]

Here you go. Once it came very close to happening in 1985.

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1985/B07180NYN1985.htm

Game two of a doubleheader in 1986, but we're getting further away here:

http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1986/B06062PIT1986.htm

That's about it. One game was close but it never happened like that.

Yes, Orosco could come in when McDowell was gassed from previous innings or vice versa, or when the other was ineffective. The point is that one was as viable an option at the end as the other, and that increased the confidence factor.

Did one often start the ninth with the other one available and warming up? Lots and lots.