Cleveland Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase is, quite likely, the best reliever in baseball these days.
He made the All-Star team, got his 46th save of the year on Monday and is as close to an automatic perfect inning as there is in MLB.
The truly special and impressive stat in his profile, however, is his ERA.
After his clean inning on Monday, Clase’s ERA improved to a mind-blowing 0.65.
Take some time to digest and contextualize that number: for every nine innings he pitches, he concedes fewer than a run, 0.65 to be exact.
That’s insane, and it puts him in pretty good company in the history of the game.
😮💨😮💨😮💨
Simply the best.#ForTheLand | @CleGuardians pic.twitter.com/mqKCSPDduT
— Bally Sports Cleveland (@BallySportsCLE) September 17, 2024
Since July 9, Clase has only conceded a single run, on August 30.
He has surrendered just five earned runs all year long, in a whopping 69.1 frames.
There are closers who have given up that many runs this month alone.
Clase is the king of run prevention, though.
As the graphic shows, his ERA ranks him fifth in MLB for single seasons by a reliever since 1913, among those who have pitched at least 50 innings.
His success stems from how stingy he is with baserunners allowed: his WHIP is an elite 0.65.
Simply put, there is no hitting that nasty 100-mph cutter, at least not with authority.
The Guardians close games virtually last eight frames: if you are playing Cleveland and are down in the score heading to the ninth, you can kiss the game goodbye.
Clase is just too good and too consistent to give away any leads.
In a world in which many teams have committees in the ninth inning, that frame has ‘Emmanuel Clase’ written all over it in Cleveland.
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