The Feeling of Blowing a Save
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by: Jimmy Scott | Special to NY Sports Day | Tuesday, September 16, 2008
I don't know if there's a worse feeling in baseball than blowing a save. And if your team is up by three runs and you blow the save, the only thing I think that can be worse in baseball is if you end your career by hitting into a triple play (trivia answer: Joe Pignatano).
I recently blew a big save opportunity. I wish I had a good excuse, like my arm hurt or Madonna had called before the game to talk about "boyfriend problems." But there were no excuses. I sucked. I did my best impersonation of a Hoover and sucked the air out of our fans, my teammates, and any possible endorsement deals with the United States Coast Guard (because I apparently can't save anyone).
It doesn't matter how it happened. I threw pitches and the other team hit them. Want to know specifics, read another blog. I'm not great with the pitch-by-pitch recall until a day or two later, when all of the gory details come pouring back into my head like a tsunami.
What's it like? I bet you'd love to know that. Blowing a save is letting people down. It's failing publicly. It's embarrassing. It's maddening. It's inevitable, unless you're Mariano Rivera, and even for him it happens. But as a relief pitcher, you've got to soldier on. You've got to be able to keep things in perspective: There's another game tomorrow. There are worse things that could happen, like Madonna recording another record. And teammates have short memories for closers who try really hard. Which, to put it another way, means they forgive you as long as you go get 'em the next day.
Of course, other players don’t always forgive. Imagine yourself as a starting pitcher with 13 wins. What sounds better in an arbitration hearing, 13 wins or 14, 15 or 16 wins? Sure, the player’s agent can blame other factors, like someone like me (or me specifically), but the team can come right back and say elite pitchers “find a way” to win 14, 15 or 16 games. Winning 13 games makes nobody elite. In effect, I now owe this starting pitcher millions of dollars because I couldn’t finish what he started.
That’s the hardest part about blowing a save. But the good closers are like trampolines. We bounce back well.
Remember Michael Jordan? Yes, the guy who never made it to the bigs and was managed by a young Terry Francona. I read a quote of his recently:
"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."
Want to know what it feels like to blow a save? It feels just like that. You screw up. You lose. You fail. But then you try, try again the next day. Kind of like life.
When put into perspective like that, it's not so bad after all.
