Putz in the 9th, down 5-4

[Snakes Gould]

now can we officially say guardado has taken the role of closer in seattle?

[bleach168]

ummm... no.

[Xtreemes]

Well he certainly didn't help his cause with this effort.

[reynolds80]

Well he certainly didn't help his cause with this effort.

Yeah. I wonder if he was pouting.

[brandnew]

WTF

He pitched 3 days in a row.

They're in a tight game, why would they pitch Guardado when he's been horrible all year?! Soriano had already been used.

This means nothing IMO

[Sp_Da_Man]

Putz hasn't lost his job because of tonight but it does mean something. Anytime a closer can't get out of an inning it's not good obviously.

Anyone that thinks it doesn't mean anything must be a Putz owner.

[brandnew]

No, I'm a Soriano owner actually. I'd love for Putz to lose the job, but I meant that it means nothing in regards to Guardado getting it back. Give it to Soriano!

[fbc_fan]

good point brandnew. however, putz did get rocked, so you have to expect that the board will talk about it. anything less would be uncivilized, as we all need our closer fix.

[Xtreemes]

WTF

He pitched 3 days in a row.

They're in a tight game, why would they pitch Guardado when he's been horrible all year?! Soriano had already been used.

This means nothing IMO

Guardado hasn't given up a run since May 3rd, he's pitching much better. Hargrove has said repeatedly that he wants to get Guardado back into the closers role eventually. No one is saying that he is back right now, but I don't know how you can act like Guardado has no chance of getting the closers job back.

[Xtreemes]

Here is Hargrove's quote from yesterday.

Closer J.J. Putz pitched a flawless ninth inning for his sixth save, but Hargrove indicated his preference is to reinstate Eddie Guardado at some point.

"That's the goal, to do that," Hargrove said. "I really feel we're a better team, and have a better bullpen, if he's the closer.

"But it's nice to know we can go to J.J."