Guardians Need To Be Careful With Emmanuel Clase
Having an elite closer is a luxury that not all teams have.
Luckily for the Guardians, they have Emmanuel Clase who has been one of the best of the best this season. He is arguably the best closer in all of baseball and is a big reason why the Guardians are sitting first in the American League Central.
There's no hiding how good he is. Clase has a season ERA of 1.31, only allowed nine runs over the entire season, has a WHIP of 0.73 and recorded 35 saves for the club.
That last stat is where things can start to get concerning.
It's not that he has 35 saves, that part is incredible. But the Guardians have gone to Clase so much this year that they could be running the risk of overworking him.
Clase has made appearances in 66 games in 2022. His career high was 71 back in 2021 and with the rate, it's going, he should break that next week.
That is a high number of games for a reliever to come into and he is tied with former Cleveland pitcher Adam Cimber for most relief appearances in Major League Baseball.
To put that in perspective with some of the other big-name relievers in baseball, Edwin Diaz has appeared in 55 games, Liam Hendriks has seen action in 51, and Kenley Jansen has taken the mound in 55 this year as well.
So yea, compared to some of the league's best closers, Clase has pitched a lot.
The Guardians must be careful that he doesn't run out of steam towards the end of the regular season or into the postseason if they make it there.
Losing Clase to an injury or seeing him fall apart due to fatigue would be a horrible end to the best season a Cleveland closer has had in a very long time.
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