There isn’t really much to say after you’ve messed up someone else’s hard work. Sorry? That one pitch was an accident?
White Sox reliever Roberto Hernandez shook his head.
“There are no words to express it,” said Hernandez, who has the dubious distinction of blowing three of his last four save opportunities and leading the team with six. “It hurts me more to blow a save because of what the guys before me have done. The starters think they have a secure win and all of a sudden floodates open. But it’s part of baseball.
“Most of the time they usually come up to me afterwards,” he added. “Other times I go up to them. It just doesn’t seem fair they can pitch seven quality innings and I go out there and blow their game.”
Whether it’s just or not, it’s happening, and the shaky bullpen is one of the main reasons the Sox are hovering just above the cellar in the American League Central, 17 games behind Cleveland.
In the first 47 games of this season, the Sox bullpen already has matched last year’s total of 14 blown saves accumulated in a 113-game, strike-shortened season.
Hernandez already has matched his league-leading total of six blown saves of a year ago.
Starter Jim Abbott has left four of his last six games with a lead and has only one victory to show for it. Last Wednesday Mark McGwire smashed a three-run homer off Hernandez in the eighth inning to give Oakland an 8-5 comeback win.
The list goes on because it’s not all Hernandez. Jose DeLeon is 2-3 with four blown saves and a 4.86 ERA. Kirk McCaskill and Scott Radinsky have each let two get away. In 11 innings pitched, Rob Dibble has given up 19 walks, six hits and has a 7.63 ERA.
“We’ve gone from pretty good, to struggling, to hopefully getting it going again,” said pitching coach Don Cooper, pointing to Monday’s 8-6 win over Seattle in which Hernandez earned his 11th save of the year. “It should build up some confidence because the game was on the line again. Bullpen relief pitching is all confidence. When a team is going good it’s all positive thoughts. When we’ve lost some games like we have, you think, `What is going to happen next?’
“If you believe it, will it, it has a better chance of happening. That’s what we have to try to change. The negative thoughts. There’s no time for that.”
After Monday night’s game, the team hoped some of the benefits of positive thinking would filter back. The White Sox led 8-5 going into the ninth, and Hernandez was brought in with Seattle’s Dan Wilson on first. He gave up a single to Doug Strange and then a bloop single to Joey Cora to load the bases.
Fists were clenched and blood pressures rose a bit in the dugout. But Hernandez was able squelch the rally, getting Edgar Martinez to ground out and Rich Amaral to fly out to Tim Raines to end the game. Three runners were left stranded, including the potential winning run at first.
“In the course of last two weeks those hits led to bigger hits later in the inning,” Hernandez said. “Fortunately on Monday they didn’t. Right now whatever little mistake we do make is crucial. It’s magnified toward the end of the game because that’s when all the money is on the table.”
Which is partly why the high-pressure, high-profile position begs a slightly different mentality. Closers face four or five batters in the most pressure-packed part of the game and say they prefer a save to a win.
Most began their careers as starters and for one reason or another made the transition. Hernandez and Dibble were starters in the minor leagues.
“It gets to the point where a manager thinks you’re a better reliever or you can’t wait four days after a bad outing before you pitch again,” Dibble said. “You go in, kill the rally, put out the fire and your job is over.”
Dibble says he’s not out to take Hernandez’s job, but White Sox manager Terry Bevington says the work is open to any of the relievers on any given night. While Hernandez has the most appearances, he is no longer the automatic closer.
“I don’t believe only one guy gets a save,” said Bevington. “Nothing is etched in stone. That’s not to say Roberto won’t get the bulk of saves, but I believe each and every day they have to prove something and they won’t be judged on how they were two to three years ago. DeLeon may be the first guy to go in today and he’ll stay if he’s doing well. They’ll know their role, but it will change.”
And while the starting pitchers may have to stare helplessly from the dugout watching all their hard work go down the drain, Abbott, for one, says he still has full confidence in the bullpen.
“I judge every game as a separate entity,” he said. “They feel worse than anyone. You just pat them on the back and go on. We’re a team.”
