It's Not Time To Hit The Panic Button On Matt Thornton(Yet)

Matt Thornton blew his second save in as many chances yesterday.  He was giving up a lot of contact and the batters just kept getting on base.  However, I will defend his outing yesterday.  He came in with a 7-4 lead, and blew that but not without tons of help from his fielders.  He got the ground out to Alexei Ramirez, who promptly threw a horrible ball across the infield to Konerko who couldn't pick it.  Then he got the soft flyout to Juan Pierre, who dropped the ball.  We all know that in MLB, if you give extra outs to a team, they usually make you pay.  All five runs the Rays scored were unearned as they went on to win 9-7.

I am not ready to give up on Matt Thornton as closer.  I think he has some work to do, but I am not ready to just give up on him.  I think one of his major problems is that he throws way too many fastballs.  His fastball is a four-seamer, which doesn't move.  In 2009, he threw 1019 4-seam fastballs, 126 sliders, and 28 unknown/unrecorded pitch types.  In 2010, he threw  842 4-seam fastballs, 93 sliders, and 48 unknown/unrecorded pitch types.  Those work out to ratios of 86% fastballs in 2009 and 85% fastballs in 2010.

Now Matt Thornton has a + fastball, and it's clearly the best pitch he has.  He has never had a very good slider, which is considered his second pitch.  He stopped throwing a changeup in 2008, so he doesn't really have that anymore.  I wish he would work on developing a better slider, he could be much more effective.  When batters mindset at the plate is only to try to guess your location, knowing that your speed and pitch type will always stay constant, you're probably going to get hit hard.

Thornton has gotten away with having only a fastball in the 8th inning, but something about the 9th inning and being closer doesn't work out that way.  The Sox have three other guys in the pen who probably could ascend to closer and have varied success rates: Jesse Crain, Chris Sale and Sergio Santos.  I am not advocating for that yet, but if Thornton can't get his act together, he might very well go back to the 8th inning.  

If this happened, I would probably like to see Jesse Crain given the chance.  He has the most experience of anyone else in the pen, and this year so far his fastball and breaking stuff has looked really good.  Sergio Santos would probably be the next best choice, but it's close between himself and Chris Sale.  Both guys have multiple pitches in their bag of tricks that would serve them well in the 9th inning. 

Matt has some work to do and I am sure Coop already has him watching video and thinking about things.  He definitely needs to work on location and a second pitch.  Let's just not blame this entirely on Matt, considering he got the outs that would have won the game yesterday, and his defense let him down.  He definitely has one of the best fastballs in the league.  The very next time we have a 1-3 run lead in the 9th, I would still bring Matt out there, no question.