"Yeah, but he loaded the bases before recording an out."
Don't care.
"Yeah, but his manager must have known the Mets' best lefties were due up."
Doesn't matter.
"Yeah, but this time, Brandon Maurer was the one pitching the near-perfect eighth inning."
Could you just ...
You see the Hand? Now stop and take a moment to understand the Hand.
Brad Hand, that is.
One of the best relievers of the last two years just got his best save of the season Tuesday, and it was entirely intentional.
All of those circumstances surrounding the save were true. It wasn't the cleanest inning. The Mets did have Neil Walker, Lucas Duda and Curtis Granderson coming up in the ninth. Maurer, heretofore the Padres closer, looked like the better reliever in this particular contest. But ultimately, Hand got the job done, something Maurer has struggled to do of late.
"No drama at all," manager Andy Green jokingly told MLB.com. "Just a really easy save for a guy getting his first save of the year."
Green played coy after the game, refusing to name anyone the closer, but he did promise we'd see more of Hand in the ninth inning. How much more?
"[I'm] not probably getting into those descriptions at this point in time," Green said. "It's going to be looking at the game and seeing what's best for the group of guys we have at that point in time."
I'll translate:
I mean, the guy has a 2.65 ERA, 1.08 WHIP and 11.4 strikeouts per nine innings over 104 appearances since the start of 2016. Now that Green has popped the lid on that jar, he'll have a hard time putting it back on the shelf.
The one-time Marlins spot starter has found his niche in the late innings, and once Carter Capps' rehabilitation didn't go as planned, it seemed inevitable Hand would eventually get his chance to close. He's only 11 percent owned and so deserves to be hyped to the hills right now, but given his supporting cast, he's a lower-priority pickup than, say, Addison Reed, Matt Bush and Justin Wilson.
Manager Dusty Baker confirmed what we already suspected Wednesday: that Koda Glover is indeed the Nationals closer. The rookie has been solid enough, but his ratios aren't overpowering. There's a good chance the Nationals still ultimately trade for a closer, perhaps even Hand. Glover is also lower-priority, then, as far as closer pickups go, but he's highly available at 47 percent ownership and could collect bunches of saves in the short term.
Listing Justin Bour here is becoming redundant, I know, but the ownership percentage just isn't rising fast enough for me. It's still only 57 percent for a guy with eight homers in his last 13 games. I realize first base is deep, but his hard contact percentage is among the highest in baseball and his overall contact rate among the highest of that group. It's a stud profile, as if the 43-homer pace wasn't enough to tip you off.
Joe Ross remains under-owned at 59 percent, but his brother Tyson Ross is only 24 percent owned as he gears up for a possible return next weekend. Tyson has the more impressive major-league track record of the two, looking like a top-25 starting pitcher for the Padres in 2014 and 2015, and seems to be having an easier time recovering from thoracic outlet surgery than Matt Harvey has, dominating in his latest rehab start Tuesday. Particularly in a year like this one, it's rare for this kind of upside to go unowned at starting pitcher.
We'll get a chance now to see if Aaron Hicks sinks or swims with Jacoby Ellsbury on the seven-day concussion DL following a collision that looked bad enough to sideline him for longer than seven days. He has slowed down over his last 10 games, going just 5 for 30, and his batted-ball profile, with an abundance of ground balls, doesn't portend Fantasy greatness. But his strikeout-to-walk ratio has allowed him to overcome it so far, making him someone we were already excited to stash in five-outfielder leagues.
Jed Lowrie stayed hot Wednesday, going 4 for 4 with two doubles to raise his season-long average to .300. He has been among the steadiest performers at second base this year, ranking fifth at the position in Head-to-Head points leagues, and yet he remains just 22 percent owned. There are flashier choices for sure. Lowrie may fall short of 20 homers in an era when that feels like the minimum requirement for a mixed-leaguer. But as available as he still is, maybe he's your opportunity to trade that big-name second baseman for some pitching help.
