The Frasor Effect

Is that the blues you hear a-calling?
Anyone order a tossed salad and scrambled eggs?

Jason Frasor may have been on the hook for the loss yesterday against the Oakland A’s, but it was hardly entirely his fault. I realize fans need a scapegoat to blame for the apparent “implosion”, and that’s all well and good. Frasor doesn’t deserve the criticism though.

Not to say that Jason Frasor didn’t have some part in the loss, but you can’t hook the loss on him entirely. The runner at third base was inherited from Romero, and the wild pitch/passed ball took a bad bounce and gave Coco Crisp a second life on the basepaths.

Frasor’s outing was the second consecutive appearance in which he’s gone from having absolute control of the ballgame to nearly letting it nearly slip away entirely. It’s something I’d like to call “the Frasor Effect”.

More often than not, Jason Frasor will enter a game and relitavely shut things down. There are other times however, where he walks the tightrope between dominance and being dominated himself.

The two games are perfect examples; on Tuesday he struck out the side, but he also surrendered a solo home run, a single and hit a batter.

It was more of the same yesterday when he struck out two, but was tagged for two stolen bases, a single and a wild pitch.

This pattern isn’t limited to this season alone either. I remember a similar game where the Frasor Effect also took place last year against the New York Yankees.

In that particular occasion Frasor struck out Swisher, intentionally walked Teixeira, let a wild pitch go to A-Rod but then promptly struck him out, gave up a single to Cano, then intentionally walked Posada.

I think these situations happen be magnified because Frasor enters a lot of high leverage situations. If he were to uncork a wild pitch or hit a batter with the bases empty, not a big deal. When the manager inserts him with a runner on base, it’s an entirely different story.

Even taking the Frasor Effect into consideration, there’s something about Jason that makes him easy to root for. I noted over at Rants Above Replacement that he’s like a shorter less intimidating version of Jonathan Papelpon.

So whenever you see Jason Frasor take the mound again, make sure you buckle in because the Frasor Effect could flare up again and we might see another white-knuckle outing.

Screen caps of JayFray’s outings courtesy of the always amazing Baseball Reference.