Could someone please fix the humidor?
The Rockies lost 12-11 on Wednesday after slamming their way back into a game in which they were down by six runs before they recorded a single out.
Greg Smith pitched all of one inning, giving up six earned runs on four hits and three walks. It was the exactly opposite of what the Rockies needed from him in the rubber match of the three-game series.
Despite Smith's incredibly poor performance, the Rockies still brought their hitting shoes. They stormed back, taking a 7-6 lead, then 8-6, then 10-6 and finally 11-6. The taxed bullpen, however, could not hold the lead, giving up six runs and losing in 10 innings.
The loss is hard to handle, especially when the offense did everything that it could to crawl back into a game that looked to be out of hand early. The bullpen has done a great job, but the loss showed a glaring weakness for the Rockies.
The big pink elephant in the room is Franklin Morales in the closers role. Jim Tracy was quick to promote him to the position after Huston Street went down. Tracy talks about Morales as a guy who can hit the mid-to-upper 90s from the left side and who has a great curve ball. All of these compliments are very true. However, Morales is missing perhaps the greatest tool required of a closer.
Morales should not be in the closers role because he does not have the mental toughness for it. A closer needs to come in with the mindset that no hitter who has ever played the game or who ever will play the game has a chance to get a hit off of him. They need to trust their stuff and know that they can throw any pitch at any time for a strike. Morales does not have that.
The hard-throwing lefty's performance was not an unfamiliar one to the Rockies. Morales looked exactly like Brian Fuentes, who, to his credit was and is a very successful closer. However, it is very well known that Fuentes is synonymous with "heart attack."
On Wednesday, Morales came in and plunked Mark Reynolds on a 1-2 pitch. This is the same Mark Reynolds who holds the record for most strikeouts in a season. Morales then walked two batters, only to wiggle his way out of the jam, a la Brian Fuentes. However, with the bullpen thin due to having already worked eight innings, Morales was sent back in the 10th inning. He threw a fastball to Kelly Johnson, who crushed it over the right field wall to seal the victory for the Diamondbacks.
Morales struggled with fastball command. And that is saying it nicely. The truth is, he had no clue where his fastball was going. He was able to locate his off-speed pitches decently, but was not getting any close calls on the plate because of the fact that his command was so poor.
The thought is nice. Morales has every pitch in his arsenal to be a closer. Unfortunately, he might be the worst guy to pick from the entire bullpen to close out games. He just does not have the right frame of mind to do it.
It may be time to give someone else a shot. There is a guy in the Rockies bullpen who does have the right mentality to close games, and would probably do a good job at it. His name is Matt Daley.
Daley is perfect for the role. He was undrafted out of college and has a huge chip on his shoulder. He worked extremely hard to get to the big leagues and instead of being a guy who floats back and forth between Triple-A and the big leagues, Daley has pitched well enough to solidify a role for himself as a late-inning guy.
Of late, Daley has struggled with pounding the strike zone like he normally does, but even with his struggles he is still sporting a Jimenez-like 0.82 ERA.
Daley does not throw hard, he does not have phenomenal pitches, but he gets outs. He has an attitude that believes he can do anything, which he proved simply by making it to the big leagues.
Fanklin Morales.
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