FanHouse Rafaelbetancourt

The Rockies, in need of set-up help, are set to get right-hander Rafael Betancourt from the Indians.

FOXSports.com earlier reported discussions between the teams about Betancourt.

Betancourt is 1-2 with a 3.52 ERA in 29 appearances. He missed all of June with a groin strain.

Colorado relievers are 14th in the NL with a 4.86 ERA. Take out closer Huston Street and that figure jumps to 5.29.

Update, 4:44 p.m.: Cleveland got right-hander Connor Graham in the deal, which has been officially announced. Graham, 6-foot-7 and 23 years old, was 7-4 with a 3.14 ERA at Class A Modesto (Calif.) and was a fifth-round pick in 2007.

Now that both Francisco Rodriguez and CC Sabathia have signed deals with teams, I'm pretty sure we can expect an influx of signings being announced in the next few days, at least when it comes to pitchers. For Kerry Wood, once K-Rod signed with the Mets on Tuesday it didn't leave him with a whole lot of options to choose from.

Kerry basically had to choose which AL Central team he thought provided him the best chance of winning -- and maybe the best chance of buying him a home made of solid gold -- between the Detroit Tigers and Cleveland Indians. He's chosen the Indians.

With two teams to pick from in the American League Central, Kerry Wood appears to have rejected overtures from Detroit to take a deal with Cleveland.

The deal is believed to be two years with a vesting option for a third. Money terms remain unclear.

While the money may not be clear, radio reports here in Chicago are saying the deal is for two years and worth $21 million with the option for the third year.

As for what this signing actually means, it's a pretty good move by the Indians. No longer will the team have to torture fans by trotting out Joe Borowski, or bore them to death with Rafael Betancourt. Signing Wood helps solidify a bullpen that was a big reason why the Indians were so disappointing in 2008. Wood converted 34 of his 40 save opportunities last season, and more importantly, he managed to stay off of the disabled list for an extended period of time.

In the Playoff Pulse series, our MLB editor takes on a hot October topic.

The ALCS is headed back to Boston deadlocked. That much at least, isn't a surprise. Neither is the fact that the Rays and Red Sox have played 20 innings so far and not one has been dull or meaningless. But the rest of this series has been a reminder of how little we really know about baseball when the postseason arrives.

Tampa Bay and Boston will enjoy a day off Sunday, so let's take advantage of that to reset the series:

- Joe Maddon managed Game 2 with desperation. He didn't have a choice because the series would have been essentially over if the Rays went back to Fenway Park down 0-2 and set for a date with Jon Lester. That desperation could come back to haunt him later on in the series, though, because of the way he was forced to stretch his bullpen.

Usually we reserve Always Be Closing for Mondays. But, much like 1995, the Braves and Indians are all the rage right now. Only this time, instead of being World Series opponents, they are the focus of closer issues. Both Peter Moylan and Joe Borowski -- the current shutdown guys -- were placed on the 15 day disabled list, leaving the closing duties open for two pretty cushy save situations.

Atlanta Braves
Bobby Cox never officially named Moylan the closer in the ATL, and maybe it's because he knew he could face "right elbow soreness" a little later down the road. Like, perhaps, today. Moylan had been absolutely dominant last season and equally as tough this year, nailing down his only save situation thus far. This works out "well" in the sense that the Braves need a roster spot for Buddy Carlyle, who was called up to take a rotation slot in the coming week. It works out "not well" in the sense that the previously deep pitching staff is getting thin quickly. Manny Acosta has a 7.20 ERA and a 1.60 WHIP on the season, but he's only pitched five times this year and the one bad outing was that freakish debacle against the Pirates. Add him immediately in all deep and NL-only leagues and think about jumping anywhere else if you need saves.

Cleveland Indians
Borowski has long been the bane of fantasy owners because of his ability to give up four earned runs en route to getting a save. In other words, no one understood why he kept the closer gig in the first place. Well, now he doesn't have it. Or at least he doesn't for the next 15 days as he'll be spending that time on the disabled list. Taking his place will likely be Rafael Betancourt. Betancourt recorded 31 holds last year, the sixth highest totals in the MLB, so it's pretty clear that Eric Wedge trusts him in a late inning role. Add in his 0.76 WHIP and a .184 BAA, and he's a very nice candidate to add in nearly any league. If he pitches well in this gig, there's no guarantee he gives it back.

It was a familiar scene for Indians fans yesterday, as they were forced to watch their closer Joe Borowski blow a save against the Red Sox by giving up a home run to Manny Ramirez. After the game Borowski expressed his frustration towards his performance, saying he had no idea what was wrong with him, but that it felt like he "was throwing through water."

Well, the Indians and Borowski now know what the problem is (well, besides the fact he kinda sucks) and Joe is going to be taking some time off and going on the disabled list.

The club said Borowski, who led the AL with 45 saves last season, has a strained triceps. He had been puzzled and frustrated by a significant loss in his velocity.

The club recalled right-hander Tom Mastny from Triple-A Buffalo.

For now the team will probably put Rafael Betancourt in the closer role, and that's probably music to the ears of many an Indians fan. Borowski may have managed to pick up 45 saves last season, but he didn't do it without giving his teammates and fans about 243 heart attacks. So far this season, Joe's picked up two saves for the Indians despite an 18.00 ERA, but he's also blown two saves and generally you'd like your closer to convert more than 50% of the time. At least, if you want to win you do anyway.

Dear Rafael,

I would ask you how you're doing, but I'm pretty sure I already know.

After all, you allowed seven runs in 1.2 innings of "work" and failed to keep your team within striking distance. Now, I'm not trying to blame you here. I mean, it's hard to blame one guy when your team was outscored 30-5 in the last three games of this series. When that happens, there's plenty of blame to go around.

Still, you got owned by Dustin Pedroia last night. The 5 foot nothing, one hundred and nothing pound second baseman of the Red Sox. He's Rudy! And he lit you up with five RBI's in the final two frames. After he sent that letter high fastball over the Green Monster in the 7th innings, you would think you'd realize that the little man can hit that pitch.

So why exactly did you throw him the same pitch with the bases loaded in the 8th inning? Did you think he just got lucky the first time around?

I'm sorry, Rafael, I'm just piling on right now. To be fair, I'm not even sure why you were in the game when you were last night anyway. I just don't know what Eric Wedge was thinking during that game.

When Jake Westbrook was struggling early, Wedge didn't have you or anybody else warming up in the bullpen to take over for him. Then after he finally settles in and starts mowing the Red Sox lineup down, Wedge takes Jake out and brings you in.

Seeing you on the mound was exactly what the Red Sox wanted to see. I don't care how well you'd been pitching against them, the way Westbrook was going, they'd have taken anybody else.

So please don't blame yourself for all of this, Rafael. I know you had a horrible night on Sunday, and you made some bad decisions, but you weren't the only person in an Indians uniform guilty of that last night.

Have a nice offseason,
Fornelli

Since the playoffs have started, Joe Borowski has been getting knocked by just about everyone with an opinion. When I picked the Indians to win the World Series, my fellow 'Housers screamed "WITH BOROWSKI?!?" Tony Gwynn was incredulous that Eric Wedge brought him in to close out game 4. Bill Simmons and Slate are piling on mercilessly today and I could probably furnish 100 more links if I really wanted to. But instead, let's look at Borowski's 2007 and see if it was really all that bad.

First off, he's a relief pitcher. He only pitched 65 and 2/3 innings this year. That means that his high ERA (5.07) could easily be inflated by a couple of bad outings, like, say the two outings in April and May when Borowski gave up six and four runs in less than an inning. Since May 13th, the four run outing that raised his ERA to 9.00, Borowski's line has looked like this: 3.91 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 40 Ks, 10 BB, all in 50 and 2/3 innings. It's not fantastic, but it's certainly passable or better. Another way to look at it is to compare the Indians' record in games Borowski has appeared in to the other closers left in the playoffs. The Tribe is 58-11 when Borowski takes the mound. The D'Backs are 54-11 when Jose Valverde takes the mound while the Red Sox are 50-9 with Jonathan Papelbon on the mound.

Yes, they're both better relievers than Borowski and I'm not arguing that. Keep in mind that Eric Wedge hasn't used Borowski for more than an inning all year while Rafael Betancourt has made 25 multiple inning appearances and Rafael Perez has 26. That suggests to me that Wedge pretty clearly knows the limits of his closer. So long as Wedge keeps using Borowski like he did during the season and in the ALDS and not like the Red Sox used Keith Foulke in 2004, I think all of the Borowski dumping could well turn out to be much ado about nothing.

Making history, or falling prey to it? Fall Down or Fall Classic looks at the reasons each playoff team could win it all -- or could become a mere footnote in 2007's MLB yearbook.

As the 2007 season began back in April, there weren't many people who would argue with you had you told them the AL Central was the best division in baseball. Everybody was saying it. Of course, most of the talk had to do with the Tigers, White Sox, and Twins.

There were some who made noise about the Indians, and while most "experts" said the Indians would compete, not many had them taking the division. No, 2006 was supposed to be their season.

After all, they had their chance in 2005 when the Indians seemingly won every game for a month and caused many White Sox fans, including myself, to sweat out a tense finish to the regular season. They came up just a bit short, but had sent the message that in 2006 they'd be a team to reckon with.

Then 2006 came and the Indians laid an egg. After getting off to a slow start, the Indians stumbled to a 78-84 finish and had to settle for fourth place. So coming into this season, we couldn't really know what to expect from the Tribe.

A season that started with an entire series snowed out ended six months later with the Indians atop the AL Central standings, and now they wait for the playoffs to begin. But how will they do? Will they finally achieve that potential and bring the city of Cleveland it's first championship of any kind since 1964 when Jim Brown was running over people as the Browns won an NFL championship? Or will they only break the hearts of their city like the Cavaliers did this summer?

Remember way back in February when MLB introduced a few new and exciting rules to the game? Well, one of them was pitchers were only allowed 12 seconds between pitches on the mound with no runners on base.

Rafael Betancourt got called for it twice Tuesday night.

A ball was added to the count of Carlos Guillen's at-bat in the eighth inning and Brandon Inge's at-bat in the ninth, which made it 3-and-2. Betancourt retired both batters.

The question is, after three months and 82 games, why did the umpires wait until now to flag Betancourt, whose slow pace dates to his time in the minor leagues?

At first, manager Eric Wedge assumed that someone from the Detroit Tigers -- possibly manager Jim Leyland -- asked the umpires to keep an eye on Betancourt. By Wednesday, the manager had revised his thinking.

``Jim didn't have anything to do with it,'' Wedge said. ``But somebody gave them a heads up. Why last night?''

Tigers first-base coach Andy Van Slyke denied that any coach was responsible, and third baseman Brandon Inge said it wasn't a player.

Betancourt had never been flagged for violating the rule before, but he had been prodded to speed up.