{"id":8140,"date":"2014-06-09T14:48:23","date_gmt":"2014-06-09T18:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/?p=8140"},"modified":"2014-06-09T14:48:23","modified_gmt":"2014-06-09T18:48:23","slug":"grant-balfour-out-of-closers-role-rays-to-use-committee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/2014\/06\/09\/grant-balfour-out-of-closers-role-rays-to-use-committee\/","title":{"rendered":"Grant Balfour out of closers role, Rays to use committee"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2014\/06\/grantbalfour.jpg\" alt=\"grantbalfour\" width=\"594\" height=\"413\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8133\" srcset=\"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2014\/06\/grantbalfour.jpg 594w, http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/files\/2014\/06\/grantbalfour-300x208.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 594px) 100vw, 594px\" \/><br \/>\nGrant Balfour turned a 0-0 game into a 5-0 defeat on Sunday losing his spot as the Tampa Bay Rays closer in the process.<\/p>\n<p>Balfour retired the first two batters he faced before allow five runs to score before he was able to finish the inning.<\/p>\n<p>Rays manager Joe Maddon declined to say that Balfour had lost the closers role following the game but announced on Monday that the team would use a committee going forward.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" lang=\"en\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%23rays&amp;src=hash\">#rays<\/a> Maddon said its bullpen by committee. Wants Balfour to get confidence back.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; RMooneyTBO (@RMooneyTBO) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RMooneyTBO\/statuses\/476025561232707585\">June 9, 2014<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Balfour holds a 6.46 ERA on the season. Jake McGee and Juan Carlos Ovideo immediately become the favorites for saves in Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Grant Balfour turned a 0-0 game into a 5-0 defeat on Sunday losing his spot as the Tampa Bay Rays closer in the process. Balfour retired the first two batters he faced before allow five runs to score before he was able to finish the inning. Rays manager Joe Maddon declined to say that Balfour [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8133,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[499],"tags":[503,570,501,179],"coauthors":[6],"class_list":{"0":"post-8140","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-front","9":"tag-grant-balfour","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-tampa-bay-rays"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8140","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8140"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8141,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8140\/revisions\/8141"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8133"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8140"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tireball.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=8140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}