Closer By Committee in DC?

“Closer by committee” is used only to describe a dysfunctional reality. It has no upside, no silver lining and when spoken in early September, it can mean nothing good. So when Matt Williams announced that the Washington Nationals were relieving Raphael Soriano of his ninth inning duties, and seeking a new answer so late in the season, the soft underbelly of the team with the best record in the National League seemed to lay bare and exposed.

The words have a very Washington feel to them as if a “closer by committee” was some tricky parliamentary maneuver available to the Speaker of the House. There is nothing arcane to Raphael Soriano’s position in DC. He is paid $15 million annually to get the final outs in the ninth inning and he had been doing remarkably well at the task until early in July. Since then his ERA has ballooned from 0.97 to 3.04 on the strength of his giving up seven runs per nine innings since the All-Star break.

The end of the line for Soriano came on Friday night against the Phillies. The Nationals took advantage of Jerome Williams for seven runs and had the game well in hand heading into the top of the eighth. Their 7-2 lead was comfortable even for Soriano and fans began to head for the exits. But a costly and rare error by Anthony Rendon led to two unearned runs in the eighth so that Soriano started the ninth with a scant 3-run cushion. That disappeared quickly enough as he promptly gave up a two-run home run to Carlos Ruiz. He had no one out and the lead had been trimmed to  7-6. He got two outs, however and had a chance to record the save if he could but handle Ben Revere who had only one home run in more than 1800 at bats in the majors. Revere has become a fine lead-off hitter who can get on base, play a flawless center field and has stolen 43 bases this season while being caught only six times. But he took a hanging Soriano slider deep to tie the game, sending the affair into extra innings where Washington eventually lost 9-8.

Manager Matt Williams announced that Soriano was being given a rest for the second time in the last month. Williams put the best face on the situation he could. He has Drew Storen, Tyler Clippard and Matt Thornton, all of whom have experience closing games. Thornton is a lefty, so Williams will use his relief pitchers as the situation dictates. However, the betting odds are that Drew Storen will assume the roll of closer over the few remaining weeks, unless by some miracle Soriano is able to reclaim the position after a suitable “rest.”

Storen leads the team with a 1.34 ERA, although since coming over from the Yankees, Matt Thornton has yet to be scored upon. His 1.85 ERA is nothing to ignore and he has 57 career saves. Tyler Clippard was the team’s closer during the team’s best season in 2012. With Storen on the disabled list for the first few months of the season, he converted 32 saves, but wore down in the last weeks of the season and Storen assumed the role going into the playoffs. It was there that Storen saw the worst inning of his career. Leading the St. Louis Cardinals in Game Five of the NLDS in 2012, Storen could not record the last out after coming in with a 7-5 lead. He had two outs and was down to the final strike twice, but could not get a close call on several pitches.

Looking at the standings with approximately 20 games to play, it is not difficult to project another NLCS that pits the Nationals and Cardinals, another tense moment where Storen could take the mound with everything riding on his ability to close out the ninth inning.

It is fair to say that the Drew Storen of 2014 is not the same pitcher that he was in 2012. He relied heavily then on his 95/96 mph fastball and used his slider as a secondary pitch. He had changed his delivery from his days at Stanford University where his prowess as that team’s closer made him the 10th overall pick in the 2009 draft taken after the Nationals had selected Strasburg with the first pick. Storen has reverted in some ways to his old delivery and he is more reliant now on his slider, using it at least as often as the fastball. He hides the ball much better and has added a slight hesitation as well. The effect has been encouraging and in his first save opportunity today, he struck out Ryan Howard and Marlon Byrd to end the game.

The other factor that gives Storen and edge over Clippard is his relatively light work load. Storen has thrown only 47 innings compared to the 66 innings for Clippard. Clippard has been heavily used by the Nationals every year since they converted him to relief. He threw between 80 and 100 innings his first three seasons and since then has exceeded 70 inning twice and is on that pace again. It shows too. Over his last ten outings, Clippard has been touched up almost as routinely as Soriano and if there were any chance to rest him as well, Matt Williams would be happy to grab it.

In a fairy tale ending, Drew Storen re-asserts the dominance he had in 2011 when he recorded 43 saves and a 2.75 ERA. But Matt Williams is a man of his word and he is likely to give Raphael Soriano another look before the end of the season. He needs to know exactly what he can expect out of all of his late inning options as the season winds its way toward conclusion and every win the Nationals can muster improves their overall post-season position.

Regardless whose name gets called when, it will be interesting to watch the situation play itself out in the weeks to come. No doubt Williams would prefer not to give the ball to Storen against the Cardinals in a final game of any post season series. Soriano is being paid the money and his experience in the roll makes him the preferred option. But it may well work out that the best choice the Big Marine may have is to re-create that very same situation from October 12, 2012. Nationals fans would hold their breath all over again fearing for the worst. Yet they still would be pulling for their former champion to make good on his second chance. Redemption is always such a great story.