Leave Beimel alone ;)

Over at Dodger Math, the guys feel Joe Beimel should not be exposed to late-game situations:

Grady’s philosphy of going with
the guy who hasn’t burned him yet
is going to drive me insane
eventually. If Joe Beimel comes
into the game in a late innings
situation, somebody, somewhere
has made a terrible mistake.

I do not agree, though. While Beimel might not be your star reliever (provided a phonomenon like this actually exists), he's been quite dependable when called up this season. Out of the nine games he appeared in to date (according to ESPN stat sheet), he allowed single runs in four of them. All four were wins by the Dodgers, three out of four by a sizeable margin of runs. He did give up 2 HR in 12.1 IP, albeit both of them were solo shots, to let him keep the damage to minimum.

Therefore my perspective of Joe Beimel is different. At the moment he might be the most positively consistent left-handed Dodger reliever we've seen this season. Not only because his potential competitors are weak (Hamulack), unproven as relievers (Perez) or in Vegas (Kuo). Joe Beimel has done his job more often than not (WHIP at .097), preserving leads better than most Dodgers coming out of the bullpen.

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