Many people who watch and follow the Nats are saying some great things about Tyler Clippard. I am too. Tyler has 29 strikeouts in 16 appearances with a very, very cool 0.76 ERA. The only three pitchers in baseball who have 6 wins? Ubaldo Jimenez, Roy Halladay, and Tyler Clippard. Clippard is the only one of those three that hasn't lost a game yet, and he's the only reliever. The kid has been on fire this season and has helped the team hold on to quite a few wins, and as I said, he hasn't lost a single game, yet.
Tyler Clippard is the real deal set up man, at least until Drew Storen is brought up in the summer and maybe even after Storen comes up. Between the two of them, they'll give each other days off, and will create opportunities for Clippard to maybe do some middle relief when our starters eventually stop going 6 and 7 innings in every game (remarkable, by the way).
But eventually, Clippard's tactics are going to catch up with him. Tyler Clippard has blown 4 saves in his 6 wins. What does that mean? It means that in his 6 wins, he has given up the lead in a save situation 4 times, and his offense has come back to give the Nats the win. With this type of statistic, all of the credit has to go to the Nats' bats. They are coming back at the end of games when all hope seems to be lost with scrappy wins. Clippard got rescued from two blown saves this weekend alone, both of them on Josh Willingham clutch home runs.
At some point, the offense won't be able to produce that miraculous game winning home run for Clippard. So, hopefully he can figure it out before he starts to accumulate any losses. This season, Clippard has looked good in almost every appearance. He just has to get out the kinks of when he inherits another pitcher's runners. After all, that's what a good reliever and set up man does.
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