How bad has Danys Baez been lately? Over his last four save opportunities, his stats are as follows: 2-1, 4.0 IP, 11.25 ERA, 8 Hits, 2 K's, 3 BB's, 4 BLOWN SAVES!!! How can you call yourself a closer and blow four saves in a row??? Completely unacceptable. That gives him 5 blown saves on the year out of 13 chances. Maybe Baez is confused and thinks blown save percentage is a stat like batting average, in which case he's got a great-looking .385 clip. I'm sorry Danys, but as far as this one goes, the lower the better. Manager Grady Little has stated that Baez is still his guy, reluctant to hand the ball in the ninth to youngster Jonathan Broxton or the bullpen horse, the already overworked Takashi Saito. Saito was a successful closer in Japan and Broxton is a star stopper in the making, but neither is preferred for the role at the moment. Another blown save by Baez may change that very quickly.

All this creates more pressure for Eric Gagne to come back even more quickly. He's already thrown a bullpen session and says he feels great. He could begin a minor league rehab stint in as soon as a week or two, getting back to the big club by June 1st at the earliest. But that date is very wishful thinking. I'd say they don't rush him back and he returns to the club around mid-June. That gives us all another month of shivering nervousness in the ninth inning hoping that Baez can slam the door on Dodger wins. My bet is he starts performing like we thought he would. I mean, the guy saved 41 games last year for the Devil Rays. That's not an easy thing to do. He just needs to calm down and get his mindset back to dominant-closer form.

Sidenote: Is there a better nickname in the league than Olmedo Saenz "The Killer Tomato"? I think Pronk is pretty funky and El Duque's a classic but I'll take the round Panamanian in this department.