Open and closer

Brandon Kintzler
lowered his ERA
to  2.30 Wednesday.

It took almost two months, three blown saves, five losses and an ERA of 6.17, but Kevin Jepsen has apparently been deposed as closer.

Brandon Kintzler got the call for the ninth inning Wednesday night, and the indy ball refugee allowed one single and picked up a strikeout to collect his first major league save.

Kintzler is not, apparently, to be the closer. Paul Molitor indicated after the game that Fernando Abad is likely to get some opportunities. His next save will also be his first. I also wouldn't be stunned if Michael Tonkin or Trevor May found some save opps along the way. 

May, incidentally, made his first appearance in more than a week on Wednesday, face one hitter, got him out and left. It wasn't exactly a stint that made me feel confident that he's over his back/hip soreness.

I doubt this job sharing thing will last long. It's not as easy as it sounds to do matchups and monitor workloads. Sooner or later, probably sooner, Molitor will pick somebody and give him the glory job. If nothing else, Glen Perkins might be nearly ready to go on a minor league rehab assignment. 

But it was time to back off on Jepsen -- not just for save situations, but for game situations, whether they be in the ninth, eighth or seventh innings. His appearances were bring back too many Ron Davis memories. There's probably a couple of generations of readers for whom that reference means little, but for those of us who were around in the 1980s, it can give us the shakes.