As the final few weeks of the Toronto Blue Jays most hopeful season in years winds down, many fans find themselves dreaming of the team's return to past glory.
Nobody can know when that day will come, but one thing that is clear is that team needs someone capable of being a dominant closer. Equally clear is the fact that Kevin Gregg is not that pitcher.
This is not a personal attack on Gregg nor a dismissal of what may well he his best season in the majors.
Entering last night's game in Baltimore, Gregg owned a 3.29 ERA and his 31 saves ranked fifth in the American League. That's good production for a pitcher signed this spring to a bargain basement US$2-million contract for this season.
If he successfully closes out three more save situations during Toronto's last 18 games, the 32-year-old will move alongside Tom Henke for the fifth-highest single season save total in franchise history.
Henke's arrival in Toronto in 1985 coincided with the Blue Jays first great competitive leap forward, which culminated in the team's first World Series title in 1992.
Duane Ward, who actually closed out the clinching Game 6 of the 1992 title, picked up that torch for Toronto's 1993 championship.
Hardly a conversation about relievers or bullpens goes by without manager Cito Gaston, also the skipper of those back-to-back title teams, invoking the names of Henke or Ward.
Part of it may be nostalgia but part of it clarifies how crucial shutdown closers have become for championship baseball clubs.
From 2000 through 2009 -- a run book-ended by New York Yankees' championships who've had baseball's all-time great closer Mariano Rivera holding down the back end of games -- every World Series-winning team boasted a true lights-out stopper.
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