Un-Baez-lievable

This was brought to my attention earlier today in one of the usenet groups. It's a quote from USA Today's baseball site (pardon my lack of direct link):

Danys Baez won't be pulled from the closer's role after
blowing his fourth straight save chance on Saturday.
"Danny will keep getting the ball in that situation," manager
Grady Little said. "Hopefully the results will start getting
better for him. We still have a lot of confidence in him."

While I must say I still do have confidence in most of the managerial decisions of Grady Little, this is one which I'm not sure I understand. Especially in the light of some brilliant outings by Jonathan Broxton who does have some, albeit minor league, closer experience. I understand the difference of quality between the majors and the minors, but a young player with right psychological make-up, which Broxton seems to be, should at least be given a shot.

It seems less and less likely that Danny Baez is a long-term closing solution for the Dodgers, anyway. As soon as Eric Gagne is anywhere close to coming back, he'd be eased in the job that'll be his to lose again. Baez will then be moved to an eight (perhaps seventh?) inning reliever. Why not check out how ready for this Broxton might be in the meantime? Given Baez's closing funk, we can't be much worse in the ninth with Broxton, can we?

Photo: [www.mlb.com]