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[tag]Philadelphia Phillies[/tag] closer, [tag]Tom Gordon[/tag], has left the team and returned to Philadelphia to get his right shoulder checked out. While he’s gone, the Phillies could use any of three guys to close out games. The candidates are [tag]Brett Myers[/tag], [tag]Antonio Alfonseca[/tag] and [tag]Geoff Geary[/tag]. Charlie Manuel has not named a new closer yet, he has only stated that Gordon would be away from the team throughout their next series in San Francisco.

The popular vote is probably on Myers taking over and that may be the way to go. Since becoming a reliever he’s got a 13:3 K:BB ratio, but he’s giving up a good number of hits… not the best trait in your closer. Geary’s k:BB is 12:7 and he’s giving up less hits per IP than Myers. Alfonseca might have been the front runner until he got touched up in Atlanta by an Andruw Jones walkoff homer. Plus Alfonseca’s k:bb is a horrid 4:6.

Keep an eye on how Manuel handles the bullpen this weekend. If Gordon goes on the DL, this weekend may tell us which one of these three guys is getting the job.

*** UPDATE *** Gordon was placed on the 15 DL and is eligible for a mid May return. Most people think he won’t have a closers job to come back to if Myers flourishes over the next few weeks.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2007 at 4:34 pm and is filed under Closers, Injury Updates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.