Closer Rankings: The good are great; the bad are awful

A lot of closers went through the week basically unscatched. By my count, there were 20 guys who are working as their team's primary closers who allowed no earned runs last week.

On top of that, the list doesn't include no-earned-runs guys like Jeurys Familia, who might be the Mets' closer, who the heck knows, and John Axford, who might be the Indians' closer again soon enough. A handful of other guys even had plausibly decent weeks, weeks that would normally be seen as "eh, fine."

But the relatively light week in craziness means that the failures get really noticed.

Grant Balfour had started to look like he had things turned around. Between May 22 and Sunday, he pitched 4.1 innings, struck out four, walked zero, gave up two hits, no runs. His ERA, which had peaked at 6.46, was down to an at-least-you-can-understand-it 4.76. Of course, then Sunday happened, and we saw that Balfour is still not exactly trustworthy. Balfour pitched the ninth inning of the Rays-Mariners game Sunday (in a tie game on the road, so props, Joe Maddon), but gave up five runs on four hits and two walks. His ERA is back to 6.46, his WHIP at 1.65, and he has a 21:20 K:BB ratio. Things ain't great.

I don't know how many save opportunities Jenrry Mejia is going to get in the long run; the team has expressed hesitance about letting him be an all-of-2014 closer, worried about too many outings in too few days and the like. Familia has gotten a couple of save chances and might get more, and Vic Black has been called up and has a closer-like repertoire. But Mejia also isn't doing himself any favors; he pitched twice in the last week, giving up two runs on two hits and a walk both times. His four runs in 1.1 innings brings his ERA to 4.68, and he hasn't had a scoreless outing since May 29.

Hector Rondon put up a 9.00 ERA last week, but with Pedro Strop back, he might not even be the closer anymore. Addison Reed and Ernesto Frieri both went 6.00, and anyone trusting them is not exactly enlightened.

And then there's Joe Nathan. I wrote about him in this space last week, and he continued on largely the same path last week. Nathan pitched 2.1 innings and allowed six runs on seven hits and two walks. He only struck out one guy. His ERA, which was 1.39 in 2013 (2.26 FIP) sits as I write this at 7.04 (4.94 FIP). There's no way to look at Nathan's season as anything other than a disaster, and while I do think there are still some good moments left for him, I have to believe there's a DL stint in his future. Guys don't go from fully functional to fully disastrous like that without something going on, especially with his flagging velocity. If nothing else, I'm betting the Tigers shut him down with a phantom injury. Anything to give him a break.

And in the meantime, what up, Joba Chamberlain? (Who, after I wrote this, promptly gave up three runs in the ninth inning Sunday night, which happens EVERY DAGGONE WEEK, but still, they can't trust Nathan.)

These are this week's closer rankings. As always, there are two lists - one for the week to come, one for the rest of the season.

Right-Now Rankings

Rest-Of-Season Rankings