It’s like I told my buddy Mark before the season started: I don’t have a problem with the closer by committee approach Boston is taking, I have a problem with the relievers in the committee. You want a closer by committee, you want to assemble a group of arms like the Mariners had in 2001: Jeff Nelson, Aurthur Rhodes, Kazuhiro Sasaki, Norm Charlton, Joel Pineiro – any of those guys could come in a shut the door in any inning. Alan Embree, Chad Fox, Ramiro Mendoza (he’s the best of the bunch by far if you ask me) and the rest just don’t impress me.

You want to have some strikeout pitchers in that committee, not sinkerballers and contact guys. When one of them puts someone on base, there are times you need someone to come in and get a strikeout. Alan Embree (who I still see as the guy who gave up HRs left and right with the Giants) is the only guy with strikeout stuff and he’s looked pretty bad so far.

The committee has also been screwing me in my fantasy baseball leagues (I have Pedro Martinez). Pedro has given up one earned run in 15 innings this year (2 starts) and the bullpen has given up 6 runs in 2 1/3 innings in those games. More stats courtesy of Aaron’s Baseball Blog:

Boston Runs Scored:
When Pedro starts – 4, 1
When anyone else starts – 9, 7, 14, 8, 12, 4, 5, 8

Boston Bullpen:
When Pedro starts – 27.00 ERA
When anyone else starts – 3.96 ERA