While it may seem odd that a team’s opening day starter would eventually become the closer in the same year, it’s not as odd as at least I thought. According to this Baseball Prospectus story, there have been eight occasions where an opening day starter logged three or more saves in the same season. And it’s also interesting the most saves by an opening day starer is none other then Tom Gordon with Boston in 1997. He saved eleven games that year.
The Phillies have dropped two of their last three games and they’ve lost some ground to the streaking Mets. In the win on Friday, Jon Lieber had a nice start and the guy he replaced, Bret Myers, saved the game for him.
And since we’re on the subject of Myers, he’s been nothing short of awesome since moving into the pen. As a reliever. he’s struck out 28 in 18 2/3 innings and he has a 0.96 ERA. He’s also held hitters to a nice .229/.299/.300 line out of the pen, and that’s despite a .366 batting average against on ball put into play. I was skeptical at first but if the Phillies get back into contention, this could be one of the moves that got them there.
