[closing_time list_id=”25010″ season=”2018″ include_stats=”1″]
- Carlos Martinez is the new closer in St. Louis with Bud Norris completely falling apart over his past three outings. We know how dominate CarMart can be when starting games, so expect more of the same from him closing games out.
- Corey Knebel has had himself a nice little comeback in the month of September (0 hits, 0 walks, 10 K’s in 5 innings), with the Brewers even handing him a save opportunity with Jeremy Jeffress unavailable. It’s great to see Knebel pitching well again, but I’d still expect to save chances to be divided up between him, Jeffress, Josh Hader, and Joakim Soria. All but Soria still can be valuable to mixed leaguers still, but Jeffress is the preferred option for those needing saves.
- Sean Doolittle returned from the DL this past week, with his first appearance coming in a setup role in front of Greg Holland. Even with Holland pitching well for the Nationals, Doolittle has just been too good for them the past year and should resume closing out games as soon as this week.
- Brad Boxberger is out as the Diamondbacks primary closer, with some committee consisting of Yoshihisa Hirano, Archie Bradley, and Brad Ziegler expected to take over. Bradley may seem like the obvious pick, but he has really struggled the second half of the season, whereas Hirano has been awesome. Don’t be surprised to see Hirano get the next save chance and he’d be my preferred add right now.
- Roberto Osuna picked up 4 saves this past week, while Jeremy Jeffress and Carlos Martinez had 3 each. Osuna didn’t have one strikeout this week, however, which is very unusual for him, especially given the 4 innings he worked. Still, he was able to not allow any runs while allowing just 3 hits and a walk.
