PITTSBURGH — The Guardians still have faith in closer Emmanuel Clase following his ninth-inning failure on Sunday at PNC Park.
They have options to replace him, but they are only 21 games into the season, and Clase has been the top closer in the American League, if not the big leagues, for the last three years.
Something, however, is amiss with the man who saved 47 games in 50 chances last year.
Take your choice of ailments:
- Manager Stephen Vogt says he’s throwing too many pitches over the middle of the plate.
- Pitching coach Carl Willis says he needs to use his slider more and work up in the strike zone.
- Clase recently reminded Guardians fans that “I am human. I make mistakes.”
- Catcher Austin Hedges, Clase’s biggest fan, says teams are formulating good game plans to beat Clase. Now Clase and the Guardians have to counter those plans.
- Clase still hasn’t shaken last year’s postseason performance against the Tigers and Yankees.
Whatever the problem, the biggest one was on display Sunday in the ninth inning of Cleveland’s 5-4 win over the Pirates at PNC Park.
Clase entered the inning with a 4-1 lead. By the time Andrew McCutchen ended the inning by grounding into a double play, the score was tied, 4-4.
Sometimes when a pitcher throws as hard as Clase, he gets beat by broken-bat bloopers and 20-hoppers. There was a couple of those Sunday, but there were also two rocket doubles off the bats of Tommy Pham and Adam Frazier.
There was also a leadoff walk, a well-placed single through the right side of the infield and an infield hit off Clase’s body.
Clase threw 30 pitches in the ninth, 20 (67%) for strikes. Vogt felt too many of them were over the middle of the plate.
“I haven’t watched the replays, but anytime they’re finding barrels against Clase it’s because the ball is in the middle of the plate,” said Vogt. “He had the walk (to start the ninth) and some bad counts. The ball is just over the middle right now.”
When the Guardians won it in the 10th Sunday on Kyle Manzardo’s sacrifice fly and Joey Cantillo’s first career save, Clase backed into the win. It could not have been an enjoyable experience.
“Clase has closed out so many games for us,” said left fielder Steven Kwan. “He’s going to have these kind of days. He’s still our dawg. He’s still our guy. We have the utmost confidence in him.
“I’m just glad we could finish it out in the 10th.”
Clase is 3-0 with a 7.84 ERA in 11 games. He’s allowed nine earned runs and 20 hits in 20 1/3 innings. The opposition is hitting .426 against him.
He has converted four saves in six chances. Two of them, one involving the tying run pulling up lame and the other a great throw from Kwan on Friday night to stop a Pirate rally, were gifts.
Last season Clase allowed five earned runs for the entire regular season.
“The quality of Clase’s stuff continues to be exceptional,” Chris Antonetti, Guardians president of baseball operations, said before Sunday’s game. “It’s a combination of little bit of bad luck — his batting average on balls in play is unsustainably high — and there’s probably some things like pitch selection and plan of attack. that we can continue to engage Emmanuel on, that could lead him to the results we’ve seen in the past.”
Clase’s BABIP (batting average on balls in play) is .487. Last year it was .195 for the season.
Here is MLB’s explanation for BABIP:
The league average for BABIP is usually around .300. Pitchers who have allowed a high percentage of hits on balls in play will typically regress to the mean, and vice versa. In other words, over time, they’ll see fewer (or more) balls in play fall for hits, and therefore experience better (or worse) results in terms of run prevention.
Antonetti also pointed to just how good Clase was last year.
“He had one of the best seasons ever for a closer last year,” he said. “So it’s probably unfair to ask anyone to go out and repeat that level of performance.
“This is a really tough league to succeed in. At times Emmanuel made it look easy … That being said we continue to think he’s one of the best pitchers in baseball and will continue to perform that way for the balance of the season.”
The Guardians have closers in waiting wherever you look. Tim Herrin, Cade Smith, Hunter Gaddis and Paul Sewald look the part. Sewald saved 34 games for Seattle and Arizona in 2023.
From Cantillo’s point of view, that job is taken.
“We have the best closer in baseball,” said Cantillo. “I don’t think my job is to close baseball games. My job is to get outs whenever they tell me to get outs.”
It will be interesting to see how the Guardians use Clase when they open a 10-game homestand Monday night. Their first opponent will be the Yankees, who beat them in the ALCS last year, shattering Clase’s aura of invincibility by rocking him for four runs on seven hits, including two homers, in three games.
- BETTING: The total for Monday’s Guardians versus Yankees game is set at 8.5 on DraftKings. Our complete DraftKings Sportsbook review provides a guide on how to use their platform.
Juan Soto is gone from the Yankees. Giancarlo Stanton is on the injured list. But Aaron Judge is still there and the Yankees are still the Yankees.
