Brett Davis-USA TODAY Sports
This past weekend, the New York Mets played host to one of the hottest teams ion the AL in the Kansas City Royals, and had to do so without the services of closer Bobby Parnell.
Parnell is currently listed as day-to-day with a sore neck, so he wasn’t available to pitch. On Friday night, the team could have used him, as the Mets blew a one-run lead in the ninth inning before winning the game in extras.
The reason for the blown save? Easy, it was the inability of David Aardsma to get the final outs needed to seal the win.
His time with the Mets this year is the first steady work Aardsma has had since he was the closer for the Seattle Mariners in 2010. I can somewhat understand the thought process here for Mets manager Terry Collins: you are without the services of Parnell. Aardsma is the only guy who has saved games in the big leagues with any consistency.
However, Aardsma hasn’t been able to record a save in the big leagues since 2010, which should have been a sign for the Mets to not use him as the closer right there.
To be fair, Collins has only two other guys in the pen who have saved games for the Mets this year in the form of Jeurvs Familia and Josh Edgin. Plus Pedro Feliciano also returned to the pen. Personally, I have more faith in Feliciano closing games than Aardsma.
I get it that Collins might have felt comfortable in trying to throw Aardsma out there to lock the game down, but still when he knows he still has other guys in the pen who are just as good, he should go with the more trusted hand. Luckily for Aardsma, he was let off the hook as the Mets won on a walk-off home run by Eric Young Jr. in the 11th.
Still, without Parnell as an option to close games right now, I don’t want Aardsma closing games for the Mets until he is sure of himself in those kind of situations. Feliciano should get the job for now until Parnell is ready to go.
