From Fanball.com
THE NEWS
Push has finally come to shove in the back of the Mariners bullpen—Eddie Guardado has been removed from the role of Mariners closer. "We're going to back off Eddie for now as far as being the closer," manager Mike Hargrove told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Thursday morning, 12 hours after Guardado's third blown save of the season. "Am I pissed off? And I hurt? Yeah, I am," Guardado said without a hit of anger in his voice. "But I care about this team. I care about the guys in the bullpen. I care about winning."
Our View
This move has been a long time coming. Besides the fact that Guardado still has an issue with a torn rotator cuff, there are more talented pitchers in the pen like Rafael Soriano and J.J. Putz to name a couple. Soriano had not allowed an inherited runner to score this season until he gave up a first-pitch grand slam Wednesday and Putz has experience closing last year. Expect them to see the most work of any of the bullpen arms.