Street Wins Closer Battle
April 2, 2009 | 11:27 am
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By Tracy Ringolsby
Huston Street confirmed on Thursday morning that he has won the battle with Manny Corpas for the closer’s role with the Rockies.
“It’s good news,” Street said. “It’s what I came to camp to accomplish.”
Thomas Harding at mlb.com has the story:
http://colorado.rockies.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20090402&content_id=4110210&vkey=news_col&fext=.jsp&c_id=col
Tagged: huston street, manny corpas
2 Comments »
Tracy –
I understand that Huston closed the spring really well. Manny had a good spring from Day 1 to the close.
Additionally, Manny did what he “had” to do this offseason (lost weight, stayed in town to work out …etc)to be the closer given the decision not to pursue Brian.
Assuming that Huston holds the job and Taylor, when he returns, does he what does …what happens to Manny?
Marc, first, if Manny goes in and does the job in the eighth inning, remember Taylor is going to have to show he is healthy and ready to pitch before even getting activated so Corpas will ahve a leg up in that regard. Also don’t count on Buchholz back before June 1. If he gets back before then consider it a bonus.
Secondly, I think a key factor in the Street decision is that once he was healthy he ran off eight strong appearances, and more importantly never threw more than 12 pitches in an appearance. That’s a message for Corpas, to be more aggressive and attack the strike zone.
Finally, there is a lingering desire to see Corpas get that fastball back up 90. He’s been more regularly at 89 this spring, which creates at least suspicions.
The most important thing, though, is for Manny to stay focused on throwing strikes, staying in shape and getting people out. It’s what he did two years ago, and he wound up the closer on July 1. It’s what Fuentes did last year and he moved back into the closer role when Manny had a misstep.
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