Ugh. The Seattle Mariners just handed the Cincinnati Reds a 5-3 win, and while every loss stings, it makes you look around the league and wonder what our guys are doing. Everywhere you look, closers are dominating, picking up saves, and putting up ridiculous numbers. It’s awesome to watch, but it also makes you wonder what’s going on in our bullpen when the rest of baseball seems to be figuring it out.
Closers Across the League Are Lighting It Up While We Watch Our Guys
Take a look at Aroldis Chapman. The dude is still absolutely getting it done for the Red Sox. This past week alone, he locked down four saves with four scoreless appearances against the Rays and Orioles, helping Boston tie a franchise record with 15 consecutive wins! Talk about being a key piece on a surging team. Then you’ve got Mason Miller over in San Diego, who’s been the best reliever in baseball all season. He’s sitting on a crazy 0.89 ERA, a 0.84 WHIP, and 75 strikeouts over just 40 2/3 innings. The dude even struck out the side in a non-save situation against the Royals. There are even trade rumors swirling around the 27-year-old flamethrower.
It’s not just him either. Jhoan Duran for the Phillies is having a career year with a 1.32 ERA, 0.91 WHIP, 50 strikeouts, and 24 saves. Cade Smith for the Guardians has been steady all season with 29 saves and a 2.72 ERA. Louis Varland for the Blue Jays has only allowed six runs all season, netting him a 1.08 ERA and 20 saves. Even Josh Hader, after coming off the injured list, made three appearances this week for the Astros, bouncing back for a save against the Marlins after giving up a run. And Bednar for the Yankees? Seventeen straight scoreless appearances, including five outs and two strikeouts for a win against the Dodgers. These guys are doing the damn thing!
Where’s Our Guy, Muñoz, in All This Firepower?
So where does that leave us, Seattle? Amidst all this closer talk, our own Andrés Muñoz is listed in Tier 2 of the top closers report. Great! You’d expect to see some stats, a highlight, a single line about a dominant outing, right? Nope. Nothing. Zero. Zip. The report mentions Edwin Díaz is checking off all the boxes nearing his return to the Dodgers, but for Muñoz, it’s just a name on a list. It’s a complete silence, a vanishing act of information.
It makes you scratch your head after watching the M’s lose 5-3 to the Reds. When you see what these other guys are putting up, you can’t help but wonder why our main man isn’t getting any love, or any mention of his recent performance. We need our closers to be making headlines for their dominance, not for their absence from the conversation.
This is the regular season, folks. Every game matters. We need our bullpen to be airtight, and we need our closers to be delivering, not just showing up on a list without any stats to back it up. Let’s see some Emerald City fire from our guys in the late innings!
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Yahoo Sports.
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