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Antonio Alfonseca was never with the Mariners organization. Do you mean Armando Benitez?



Oops. My bad. Yeah, I meant Benitez. I get all those latino names mixed up!

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Mesa was Seattle's closer in '99, and despite saving 33 games he had an ERA near 5.



The M's weren't all that good that year. The next year Sasaki pushed him to middle relief and his ERA was 5.36. He then went to Philly and his next two years he had 2.34 and 2.97 for his ERA and saved 42 and 45 games respectively. Benitez had a 1.93 ERA with the Yankees. Was Rivera hurt at the time? But when Benitez went to Seattle it jumped up to 3.14. Then he's the closer for Florida and he goes down to 1.97 and 47 saves. You would think it shouldn't make a difference, but all closers will tell you otherwise. I suppose it's like being a DH. You'd think the production should be the same whether you DH or not, but almost all players will tell you that ain't so.

When Sasaki came back from injury his last season with the M's they tried him at middle relief to ease him into it and he was terrible. He complained that he needed the rush of the closing situation to get into the game. I suppose it's more mental than anything else, but isn't that what makes the closer the closer? Seperates middle relief from closing?

"You kind of get tired giving the other team credit. At some point you've got to look in the mirror and say 'I sucked.'"

Alex Rodriguez, after the NY Yankees were eliminated from the 2006 ALDS by the Detroit Tigers.