Take yourself back to the beginning of this season when Joe Nathan was taking a loss and blowing a save in the opening week of the season. The calls came out for Alexi Ogando to become the closer, or Mike Adams, or even to move Neftali Feliz back to the closer's role after moving him to the rotation.
Since then, for the most part, Joe Nathan has been unflappable as the club's closer. With each save he records he ups the club record for consecutive saves in a season (it's up to 25 now after Tuesday night's dominant save).
Aside from the out-of-the-blue signing of Adrian Beltre following the 2010 season when the Rangers lost out on Cliff Lee and had money to spend, there hasn't been a more meaningful free agent signing for the Rangers in quite some time than Nathan, who signed for two years for $14.5 million and a club option for a third for a 37-year-old with a history of arm trouble.
All Nathan's done is make the All-Star Game and put up a ridiculous K:walk ratio of 64 to 8, which is on pace to be a new career watermark for him. He did give the Rangers a little scare when he had to receive a cortisone injection in his shoulder after some shaky outings against the Los Angeles Angels, but since then he's been absolutely lights out, pitching 7 1/3 innings over eight games, recording six saves with 13 strikeouts and no walks.
Over the past two nights, Nathan has recorded two saves with five strikeouts and no hits. He seems to be pitching as good, if not better, than he ever has. And that says a lot for a guy that finished in the top-4 of the AL Cy Young voting and has recorded in excess of 40 saves three times in his career.
So yeah, Jon Daniels. You win this one. Good signing.
