W. Ross Clites Your City Sports-Cleveland Saint Louis, MISSOURI--The division races in Major League baseball are often dictated by the specialty pitchers in the bullpen. A manager's confidence in a closer can wane in the final months of the season, for a blown save in August (compared to one in April) leaves a far more bitter aftertaste. Leading a game for 8 innings is a must win situation for teams in the hunt for October. This immense pressure--this demand for perfection in an imperfect sport--has begun to mount for certain closers across the league. Some are falling short; fading not only in Pitcher Rating but also in their team's bullpen depth chart. Guys like Jonathan Broxton and Bobby Jenks were full-time closers, tenured in the position with their current teams, all season long. Suddenly, however, Hong Chih-Kuo has moved to the closer role in Los Angeles while Ozzie Guillen has recently resorted to a closer-by-committee in Chicago. In both cases, a handful of poor outing...

W. Ross Clites Your City Sports-Cleveland Saint Louis, MISSOURI-- For my local Saint Louisans, visiting YCS-Cleveland from a link at examiner.com , welcome to Pitcher Rating. The recipe is as secret as Colonel Sander's chicken, and it was my conception earlier this summer. Scroll through the June archives to see how the statistic has evolved. It has added Holds, Run Support, and WHIP in subsequent weeks from its June 16, 2010 birth. It seems fitting that this introduction occurs as Adam Wainwright takes over the best overall ranking. Quite impressively, this is the first time that Ubaldo Jimenez fell to the second spot all season long. He got out of the blocks like the hare, with a 15-1 record (.938 win percentage). Yet, Wainwright never went away. He was right there when Jimenez had even the most minor of hiccups. The infamous tortoise would be jealous at how well he closed the gap. Meanwhile, in the race for the postseason, 2010 is beginning to look like a throwback to 1996. Who ...

W. Ross Clites Your City Sports-Cleveland Saint Louis, MISSOURI--Thankfully, baseball has moved away from caring about watered-down milestones. Yet, we all still have an infatuation with statistics...in the right context. The game has become more about perennial numbers, and less about the career totals that would be etched on a Hall of Fame plaque. I say "would be" and not "will be" because of a little acronym called PED. And if the Baseball HoF won't acknowledge this era's blitzkrieg on career records, then neither should anyone who covers the game. Cooperstown is a baseball geek's Vatican City, and a clear message has been handed down by the College of Cardinals (Veteran's Committee and Baseball Writer's Association). They say 600 never happened for three of the seven members of the club. Neither did 762, 73, 70, 66, et al. The knock on baseball fans is that we are too consumed by the numbers. That we built this problem by pining over numbers,...

W. Ross Clites Your City Sports-Cleveland Saint Louis, MISSOURI--Like the Dow Jones Industrial, Ubaldo Jimenez continued a downward slide last week. The Rockies ace left the door wide open for his fellow National League starting pitchers, Adam Wainwright and Josh Johnson, to dethrone him from the top Pitcher Rating spot he has held for the entire season. On Fox Network's nationally-televised Saturday game of the week, Jimenez lasted only two innings in Philadelphia. He gave up six earned runs and subsequently his PR dropped 2.15 points. Come Sunday morning, this decline was enough to put him in second place behind an idle Wainwright. Because the three arms--competing for the NL Cy Young--are not aligned in the days that they throw, it took until Tuesday for Wainwright and Johnson to respond. But when they did step on a mound again, one had a chance to extend his lead over Jimenez; while the other had the potential to leapfrog both pitchers ahead of him. For both, all it would take ...

W. Ross Clites Your City Sports-Cleveland Saint Louis, MISSOURI--This is my first installment since I moved west of the Mississippi on Wednesday. The Cardinals are sure glad I am here, while the Indians are sure glad I am gone. It could also be that the absence of LeBron has renewed Cleveland's faith in baseball and the team--playing pressure-free and finally healthy--is responding to an AL Central spoiler role. Any way you would like to spin it, since my U-Haul touched down in STL both teams have won 5 straight games and not lost once. Let me go on believing that I was the missing piece in the sports scene for the Redbirds. But if I am going to be that ego-centric, I must also accept blame for holding back the youthful bats of the Tribe. My apologies, Cleveland, and you're welcome, Saint Louis. Now, on to this week's Pitcher Rating highlights. Recently, a friend introduced me to an interesting section of espn.com's baseball page. Two gentlemen that definitely belong on...

W. Ross Clites Your City Sports-Cleveland Kent, OHIO--We should have expected this. 2010 has been billed as "The Year of the Pitcher" by everyone and anyone since mid-June. A bit of a snooze-fest in the All-Star Game is simply the undesired side effect to a pitching Renaissance. Pitcher Rating July 14 Leave Comments on my Facebook page or Email Feedback to w.ross.clites@gmail.com