Closer-by-Committee
Today, Lou Piniella announced that Ryan Dempster will not be our closer. Instead, he is going to try to get Dempster in there 4-5 times a week, so he can get more work in because he has not had many chances to get a save. So for the most part it will probably be Howry and at times we might even use Marmol in a situation. Howry did an excellent job closing out games when Dempster was on the DL, so I think this move will help him out. He also does good in pressure situations, for instance last night with the bases loaded. Carlos Marmol will also get some chances at getting saves, but not right away, because I do not think he is ready as he has come back down to earth a little and it seems as if though he has struggled with his command of late.
I can see Dempster being used as a 6th inning kind of guy and maybe even used as a long reliever, because he used to be a starter and has the versatility to do that. We definitely need one of our guys to be a long reliever considering that our starters have been having short outings of late. It will be interesting to see how Howry and Marmol respond to being a closer again, but hopefully Dempster can succeed in a non-closer situation.
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Marmol might actually be the best option at closer.