Rodney out Farqhuar in?

Last night was another roller coaster night for the Mariners, but the roller coaster ride didn't really begin until the top of the ninth inning. Fernando Rodney put both his team and the fans on a blood pressure rising inning. Although Rodney did earn his fourth save of the season he gave up 2 runs, hit a batter, and walked two batters. He shot his arrow but I think that arrow should have been shot by Justin Smoak since he was the one who bailed Rodney's ass out of the inning with a game ending unassisted double play.

The Mariners signed Fernando Rodney to a two year deal worth $14 million dollars, and at first I was wondering why the Mariners signed Rodney when Danny Farqhuar did a great job as the closer last season converting 16 saves in 18 opportunities. A lot of people are skeptical including myself of Rodney's inability to have clean saves. In Rodney's first two appearances this season, he only allowed 1 hit in 1.2 innings of work and had gotten his first save against the Oakland A's, but since in the 5.2 innings he's walked 6 batters and has had only one clean inning, lost one game, and raised his ERA from 0.00 to 3.68.

Rodney is 37 years old, so the question is will Lloyd McClendon stick with the control issued Rodney as the closer or make the switch to Danny Farqhuar?

Farqhuar has appeared in 9 games so far this season and in 10.2 innings of work he's walked 6, struck out 10, and has an ERA of 1.69......oh yeah and he's only given up 2 earned runs. Farqhuar has also held his opponents hitters to an even .200 batting average while Rodney's opponents are batting .321. Rodney also had some interesting comments in his post game interview in regards to Adrian Beltre's at bat, he said "In a situation like that, I was looking for a ground ball for a double play to end the game. I made a good pitch, line drive to first game over."

Rodney didn't deserve to shoot that arrow last night, if anything he should have let Smoak shoot it since he bailed him out of that jam. Rodney again has shown us through his last 6 appearances that he has no control of his pitches and last week in the game against the Rangers he was the main reason why the M's lost that game. When your closer cant get you three outs without walking batters or giving up 2 or more hits then I think its time to look for someone else to close your games for you.

McClendon is going to have to make a choice soon, unless Rodney gets control of his pitches and has good quick innings or 1-2-3 innings Lloyd may make the switch to Farqhuar as the closer for this team.