Philadelphia Phillies’ Jonathan Papelbon extends his 30-saves number for seven straight seasons-MLB
Relief pitcher Jonathan Papelbon keeps drawing saves at the same pace as he has been in the last seven seasons. Regardless of the performance of the Philadelphia Phillies in the season, Papelbon has been an exceptional player for the team so far. Due to
his ability to protect the lead late in the games, he was named as an All-Star pitcher for 2012.
Most of the matches which saw him throwing in the penultimate innings ended up with the team coming out on top. The fact the starting pitchers have leaked runs and have done little to save the team from suffering lengthy losing streaks signals that better
shows from their part will have resulted in even greater number of saves for Papelbon. Still there are many games remaining in the season and therefore it can be expected that he finishes off the year with an amazing number of saves.
Phillies have had a dismal season so far and are out of contention for the play-offs. While injuries are partly responsible for their first half of the season collapse, some structural issues also prevail which call for sweeping changes on the roster.
Apart from the mediocrity of their offence, Philadelphia’s starting pitchers have not stepped up on occasions when contribution from them was required. Far from making up for the poor run support and overshadow it with stand out shows on the mound, they
became part of the problem.
Cliff Lee and Roy Halladay were considered to be among the pitchers that will play an important role in assisting the Phillies towards defending their Division Championship title for the last five years. However as they have not lived up to expectations,
it is no surprise that the club is out of the race.
The number of losses that these two have recorded in the season suggests that Papelbon has done something out of the ordinary to work his way to achieve 30 saves.
It can be concluded that Papelbon has hardly left any opportunity which arose during the matches for saving.
Certainly the Phillies can take something substantial out of the consistency with which he records saves by providing him the help of quality starters in the next season.
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