Lidge makes adjustments after slumping through '06

	Lights out? Brad Lidge was anything but in 2006, allowing a career-high 10 home runs and losing his job as the Astros' closer. Bob Levey/WireImage.com
	Bringing the Heat 2006 K/9 leaders (min. 75 IP) Pitcher, team SO/9 IP 1. Brad Lidge, Astros 12.48 2. Takashi Saito, Dodgers 12.29 3. J.J. Putz, Mariners 11.95 4. Jonathan Broxton, Dodgers 11.44 5. Francisco Liriano, Twins 10.71

KISSIMMEE, Fla. -- In baseball terminology, Brad Lidge is what is known as a "standup guy." He's accountable. Always willing to talk. Always willing to listen. Always there to take the kudos or the clobbering. That's Brad Lidge.

Being a standup guy, for the most part, is a good thing. In a lot of people's eyes, it's one of the best things that a player can be. The problem with Lidge -- and, yes, he has his problems -- is that he's had to be a standup guy way too often in the past year or so. Every time you turned around last season, Lidge was earnestly explaining what went wrong.

It's a great character trait, sure. But, all in all, the Astros would prefer that their good-citizen closer simply quit getting his butt kicked so often.

Lidge is confounding in a couple of ways. He's not some whacked-out head case ready for the scrap pile. His arm's not ready for triple ligament replacement surgery. Lidge's stuff is still really good. He was good enough last year, in an otherwise pretty terrible season, to post the best strikeout rate, per nine innings, of anyone in baseball (see chart, above). When Lidge is on, when his slider looks like it can slice a deck post in half and that 95 mph fastball lights up hitters' eyes, he can still blow the ball past anybody. Even Albert Pujols.

But, yeah, Lidge has had his bad moments. And that has prompted this good guy -- really, if you can't root for somebody like Lidge, you're just downright evil, or anti-Astros -- to listen to everybody and anybody that comes calling with an idea or a tip. That's just about the worst thing a closer can do.

"It wasn't as horrible as we all made it to sound," Astros manager Phil Garner said about Lidge's 2006 blowups. "I think he'll be fine. You just gotta eliminate people. Go talk to one person. One person you trust. That's it."

Lidge will admit it: He listened too much last year and he thought about his problems too much. He couldn't, or wouldn't, tell all those good-intentioned people to simply back off. He listened to people and gave up his windup, pitching almost exclusively out of the stretch. He listened to people and started throwing sinkers and cut fastballs. One bad outing led to another and, as the Astros' lackluster season died a quiet death, Lidge ended up with some of the worst numbers of his career. A 5.28 ERA. An ungodly 36 walks in 75 innings. He allowed 10 home runs, including a couple of grand slams. Lefties ate him up. He blew six saves. By mid-August, Garner pulled Lidge from the closer's role.

"I hadn't really come across a lot of failure in my career, and so when I did, I thought it would be beneficial to listen to people," said Lidge, 30. "Really, what I should have done was just simplify and iron out my mechanics. I was trying out all kinds of new things and really got myself into trouble. I started walking way more guys than I normally do. And that got me into a bad rhythm. It was tough for me to bounce back from that, just because I had gotten in so many bad habits."

Lidge bashers will tell you that it all began the postseason before, when Lidge served up a memorable, game-winning home run in Game 5 of the 2005 National League Championship Series to the Cardinals' Pujols. That homer was memorable in its mammothness, a moonshot of a walkoff, an ego-shatterer of the first degree. Lidge was shaky through the rest of the postseason, which ended in a World Series loss to the White Sox in four games, and that dripped into the early part of the 2006 season.