CLEVELAND — He has taken, shall we say, a circuitous route to get there, but facts are facts: Rockies closer Huston Street leads the major leagues with 22 saves in 24 chances.
“A save is such a team stat, it really is, so it’s gratifying that the team has put me in position that many times,” Street said. “And on a personal level, it’s gratifying to get the job done.”
Street almost always gets the job done. It’s how he goes about doing it that causes so many heads to shake and palms to sweat.
Take the first two games of the Cleveland series. Street was “100 percent” certain that Grady Sizemore’s drive in the opener was going to land in the right-field seats, only to watch it die on the warning track. One night later, Street allowed a triple to Cord Phelps but was able to strand him on third.
It has been a wild ride, all right, but not for Street. He accepts the ups and downs as part of his job description.
“They don’t seem wild to me,” he said. “To me, it’s baseball. It’s part of it. If I was sitting here 17-for-24, that would be a totally different story. My job has gotten done 22 out of 24 times. That’s how you have to look at it as a closer.”
Street broke out of the gate with 10 saves in April but struggled through May, a month in which he allowed a .359 batting average and five home runs in 11 appearances. He has been better in June — his eight saves are tied for the major-league lead — but he allowed a run in three out of four appearances before the Rockies left for their current road trip.
“You’ve got to take the good with the bad and accept the responsibility,” Street said. “This game is very simple. It’s about winning and it’s about losing. My job is to preserve the win. I don’t care if I give up four runs, if we win I’m going to sleep that night happy.”
Footnotes. Root Rockies analyst George Frazier, who once called the Yankees’ bullpen home, will participate in Sunday’s old-timers festivities at Yankee Stadium. . . . Charlie Blackmon had made 14 consecutive starts before sitting out Wednesday’s game. “A well-deserved day off,” Rockies manager Jim Tracy said. “Just to give him a chance to step back, relax and catch his breath.” . . . Chris Iannetta also was out of the lineup with the heat having arrived and the Rockies playing day games at Yankee Stadium on Saturday and Sunday, and another at Wrigley Field on Monday.
