Wednesday afternoon, Texas Rangers closer Neftali Feliz was summoned in a save situation, and for the tenth time in 12 opportunities, he sealed the deal. Here was the sequence:
The Absurdity Of Neftali Feliz
- Out
- Four-pitch walk
- Five-pitch walk
- Out
- Out
So it wasn’t a clean inning, but he still got the job done. Nothing to worry about, right? So long as it doesn’t become a pattern.
Oh, but it has become a pattern. Such a terrifying pattern that Lone Star Ball was moved to post my favorite poll of the year. After Wednesday’s game, Feliz has ten saves and a 1.12 ERA. Also after Wednesday’s game, Feliz has 14 walks and eight strikeouts.
That's good for a K/BB ratio straight out of the late-career Steve Trachsel handbook. But wait, it gets even weirder. The right-handed Feliz has eight strikeouts and three walks against left-handed hitters, and zero strikeouts and 11 walks against right-handed hitters.
Facing Feliz a year ago, righties struck out four times as often as they walked. Facing Feliz so far in 2011, righties have struck out zero times as often as they’ve walked, and the statistical truth is even worse than this sentence makes it sound.
Others have tried to figure out what’s going on. I have tried to figure out what’s going on. The search has been fruitless. Feliz’s repertoire is more or less intact. His location patterns between 2010 and 2011 are highly similar. His pitch mix doesn’t look significantly different. All we have are these data tables:
| vs. RHB | Strike | Swing | Whiff | Foul | In Play |
| 2010 | 64% | 46% | 12% | 17% | 18% |
| 2011 | 52% | 39% | 4% | 21% | 14% |
| vs. LHB | Strike | Swing | Whiff | Foul | In Play |
| 2010 | 65% | 50% | 12% | 24% | 13% |
| 2011 | 59% | 45% | 10% | 17% | 17% |
For whatever reason, a supposedly healthy Neftali Feliz has simply stopped throwing strikes, most notably to right-handed hitters. He hasn’t gotten pounded when he’s put the ball in the zone, but he hasn’t put the ball in the zone often enough to make things easy on himself.
Given that Feliz is still throwing hard, doesn’t seem to be hurt, and appears to be pitching to roughly the same spots as he was last season, I have little choice but to come away assuming he’ll be all right. There are no smoking guns here, and even though the splits are ugly, the rest of the picture suggests that Feliz isn’t far away from what he was. I’m inclined to believe that he’ll go back to normal before long.
But I hope he doesn't. I don't mean this in an I'm-a-Mariners-fan-so-I-hope-he-sucks kind of way. I don't want Feliz to end up with twice as many walks as strikeouts and an ERA over six. I want Feliz to end up with twice as many walks as strikeouts and an ERA under two. I want him to be an effective closer, and I want him to go the whole season without whiffing a single righty. I know it's a fantasy, but we've already gotten this far, so Feliz might as well play it out and end with a season that would make Don Stanhouse blush.
Here’s to the continuation of the unfathomable.
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