Huston Street – Postseason-Traumatic Stress Disorder
At about ten minutes to eight Eastern Time on Saturday evening, Huston Street gave up a home run to Magglio Ordonez that will be the beginning of a quick fall from grace for the Oakland closer.
Unproven playoff closers who lose deciding games for their team may never be the same. The psychological effects can be incurable. Postseason-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder seems to plague relievers, it is usually they, probably unfairly, who bear the brunt of the teams loss.
Street was charged with an ensured loss in Game 1 of the ALCS in which he gave up a home run to Granderson in the top of the 9th and after pitching out of a jam in the 8th in Game 4 gave up a walk off homer. Street only gave up 4 homeruns in all of the regular season.
I bet Billy Koch is on the phone to the Street household right now, seeing if they want to go halfers on Devil Ray season tickets next year, get drunk on Miller Lite and heckle their former teammates. This is what washed up A’s closers seem to do. Remember Billy Koch ensuring the loss in the 2002 ALDS vs Minnesota, Billy Koch said to reports he, “wanted to kill himselfâ€.
Donnie Moore was a strike away from sending the Angels to the 1986 World Series but gave up a home run to Boston and the Angels eventually lost the series. He is no Angel in the Outfield but maybe Donnie’s ghost visits Billy Koch and Mitch Williams. Donnie Moore took Koch’s statement one-step further and killed himself after his career fell apart after the ’86 post season.
Mr. Automatic in 2005 was Brad Lidge; he gave up the mega-dramatic home run with the Astros a strike away from a Series berth but Albert Pujols. He went on to be charged with 2 losses in the World Series. Lidge kept his job in 2006, he managed 32 saves but saw his ERA and WHIP balloon to 5.28 and 1.4 respectively. He is jinxed. He won’t last.
Remember Mitch Williams, he faded fast, he was famous for either walking a batter or striking him out. Well, Joe Carter changed that with a walk-off series winner in 1993. Williams played in parts of 3 seasons after that he wasn’t able to keep his ERA under 6.75 or his WHIP under 2.4, very bad.
This curse seems to evade starting pitchers and Yankees, the psychological effects are not the same, a starter is out of his element tying to close out a game, Charles Nagy recovered fine after a fluky 1997 Series loss. Ralph Terry gave up a home run to Mazeroski in 1961 and rebounded to be the WS MVP in 1962. Mariano Rivera gave up a blooper to lose the 2001 WS in Phoenix he was able to bounce back. That being his only post-season loss and 1 of only 10 ER in 113 innings.
So, is there a curse of the Closer, is there Postseason-Traumatic-Stress-Disorder? Is Rivera mentally tough and Williams and Moore mentally fragile? Huston Street will be dwelling on this moment like the pathetic fictional Dolphins kicker in Ace Ventura: Pet Detective until he goes completely mad, “Ken Macha(curses), it’s his fault, I can only pitch one inning, ONE INNING.â€
Good call, a number of these guys can’t come back from blowing up. The thing about Street was that he blew 3 of his last 4 regular season save opps, so all in all he had a rough month. He was studly in his freshman year in Texas, saving 4 games in the college world series. It will be interesting to see what becomes of this. I assume that he’ll get traded fairly soon, as he’ll come off the mlb minimum and be eligable for arbitration, and beane isn’t about paying a big salary if he doesn’t have to.
Mitch Williams had a WHIP over 2.4? That has to be one of the worst WHIP’s of all-time!