O's have a possible problem developing with erstwhile 'sure thing' closer Jim Johnson. Last night he blew another save, his 8th blown save of the season, which leads the majors. It cost the O's their 2nd walk-off loss in a row to Arizona. Johnson had been lights out through 14 saves, but since then he has gone 25-8 in save chances, a 3 to 1 ratio, which isn't going to cut it. More importantly, the O's have lost 7 of those blown save games. The O's are in the middle of a playoff race, currently 2 games behind Oakland and Tampa Bay for one of the WC spots. They trail Boston by 6 games for the AL East lead. Easy to see by the numbers that the blown saves/losses have them outside looking in a this moment. Buck has a decision to make as to whether Johnson is the man to get them the saves they need to make the playoffs. Is a 75% success rate acceptable? I don't think so, not in a playoff race. Johnson just has not had a smooth year. He has 56 appearances, of which only 19 have been of the 1-2-3 types, all the others he has allowed at least 1 base runner and 14 of them have been multiple runners. Nothing has been easy. Of course, the big question is if not Johnson, who? I don't know the answer, but Buck better be worried about it. Another couple of blown saves could mean a blown season. -- Al
Once again, Johnson comes in to close out a game with a 1-run and has blown it, #9 on the year, and his third BS in a row. On to extra innings.
