No Relief In Sight

The thought of one inning of work used to prompt reliever Troy Percival of the Anaheim Angels to gulp more than a gallon of coffee a day, chug several cups of cola and pack in mouthfuls of chewing tobacco. Pitching one inning still makes 40-year-old Doug Jones of the Milwaukee Brewers so nervous that even on a good night his body trembles and has a burning sensation for 20 minutes after the last pitch. That one inning often leaves Seattle Mariners manager Lou Piniella hotter than a jalapeño, as evidenced four times this season when he barricaded himself in his office rather than talk about it with the press.

That inning, of course, is the ninth, which is just another inning in the way the SAT is just another high school quiz. For many teams, Beethoven's Ninth is easier to play than baseball's. The men entrusted with protecting small ninth-inning leads, and occasionally ties, have the most stressful job on a ball club. That explains the turnover at the position this season, as well as the extraordinary attention that closers received from contending clubs near the trading deadline.

Within eight days beginning on July 31, four closers who saved 30 or more games last season changed teams. Two of them who have struggled this year—righthanders Mike Timlin and Heathcliff Slocumb—were acquired in separate deals by the Mariners. Seattle was so desperate not to let a leaky pen undermine the first season in six years in which Randy Johnson, Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez are all healthy that it gave up a 24-year-old starting pitcher and two former No. 1 draft picks, including rookie sensation Jose Cruz Jr. Meanwhile, righthander Roberto Hernandez, part of the Chicago White Sox's tag sale, joined righty Rod Beck in San Francisco, giving the Giants a late-inning combination reminiscent of the 1996 New York Yankees (righthanders Mariano Rivera and John Wetteland) and the 1992 Toronto Blue Jays (righties Duane Ward and Tom Henke).

When the Chicago Cubs dealt righthander Mel Rojas to the New York Mets in a six-player trade last Friday, the Cubs became the 10th team to change closers since Opening Day. Though Rojas was obtained to set up one of the few tenured closers in the business, southpaw John Franco, he found himself pitching the ninth inning of a tie game against the Houston Astros last Saturday in his first appearance for New York. He promptly coughed up five runs.

After saving 36 games for the Montreal Expos last year, Rojas signed a three-year, $13.75 million free-agent contract with Chicago, pitched his way out of the closer's role with the Cubs and became a setup man for the Mets, a team that was tied for the major league lead in blown saves (23) through Sunday. His three-team journey over 10 months is an excellent illustration of the fickleness of the highly caffeinated world of the closer. "His stuff is as good as it was last year, when he saved 23 in a row in the second half," Cubs general manager Ed Lynch says of Rojas. "He just lost that mental edge all closers need to be successful."

In an era when closers are asked to pitch fewer innings than ever (box, page 51), their mental burden remains so heavy that it continues to overwhelm many of them. The emphasis on specialty relief pitching in the '90s has only intensified the glare upon an individual who in one inning can undo the work his teammates have done over the previous eight. "If [closing] was easy, a whole lot of people would do it, and there aren't that many who can do it well," says lefty Norm Charlton, one of seven relievers tried in save situations this year by Piniella, who's slammed more doors than his closers. "There are guys out there who have great stuff who flat out do not want to be closers because they can't handle the stress and the grind of the job."

So volatile is a closer's life that of the 18 relievers who earned at least 30 saves last season, half are no longer the regular closers for the same teams. Of the seven closers named to the 1996 All-Star team, none earned a return trip this year. Who would have expected righthander Jose Mesa, who had 85 saves for the Cleveland Indians in 1995 and '96, to be chucking mostly middle relief this season, while Pittsburgh Pirates rookie righty Rich Loiselle, a 38th-round draft pick who had been traded twice and had never saved a game in pro ball, accumulated 18 saves through Sunday? Actually, such turnarounds are no longer shocking. Mesa himself was something of an apparition, suddenly emerging as the 1995 Cy Young Award runner-up in the 14th year of an ordinary pro career.

Finding a closer isn't too difficult—28 pitchers saved 30 games or more over the two seasons before this one—but finding one who can withstand the stress night after night, year after year, is very hard indeed. Says Lynch, "On a staff of 10 pitchers you might have five or six with the stuff to be a closer, but one, if you're lucky, who has the mental approach. The good ones have guts and a short memory. If we have someone we think could be a closer and the reports say he's an a- - - - -, I think, Good. The traits that serve you well in society, like humility, don't serve you well on the mound."

Only seven current stoppers have been closing games for at least seven seasons: Franco, Jones, righthanders Rick Aguilera of the Minnesota Twins, Dennis Eckersley of the St. Louis Cardinals, Jeff Montgomery of the Kansas City Royals and Todd Worrell of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and lefty Randy Myers of the Baltimore Orioles. Eckersley, the 42-year-old master who's been around so long that he pitched to Hank Aaron, had saved 27 games in 31 chances for the Cardinals through Sunday, prompting Astros general manager Gerry Hunsicker to remark, "He throws 87, 88 miles per hour, and you ask, 'How does he do it?' He's probably the most interesting guy out there because he doesn't have what you'd call closer's stuff, but he has great confidence. Closing is a big mental game."

The save, taken alone, is hardly a fair measure of performance. Many save opportunities are easier to convert than an NBA free throw. Of Mesa's 85 saves in 1995 and '96, he had to preserve a one-run lead only 26 times and inherited a total of 16 runners in 131 appearances.