Todd Jones...Ouch!

I was watching the end to the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians game on Friday night, I believe. Detroit led 9-5 going to the 8th and then led 11-7 heading to the bottom of the 9th. Closer Todd Jones had been brought in to record the final out of the 8th, but didn't do so until Cleveland has scored twice more to close the gap. Neither of these runs were credited to Jones, as one was unearned and the other was credited to Ledezma. So, the erratic Jones, as wild as he is, could record three outs (four total) before Cleveland scored four runs, right? No, not exactly.

As the Indians came back and scored five runs in the 9th to beat Jones and the Tigers 12-11, the closer finished with one full inning of work, seven hits, two walks, and five earned runs. Out of twelve batters he faced, nine reached base! The guy threw 46 pitches in one full inning of work, 26 of which were strikes. I've seen some awful 9th innings for closers, but I don't know that I've ever seen one that pathetic. How this guy still has a job is beyond me. This wasn't a one time fluke. The guy now has four blown saves and an ERA over 6.00! Ouch! It's so bad, I heard that Tigers' management is thinking about signing John Rocker! With Gary Sheffield around, that could make for a very interesting (soap opera-like) dugout! ...and Cubs' fans thought the Zambrano-Barrett duel was bad. They haven't seen anything yet!