Wednesday night something weird happened (no, not snocones). Jose Veras entered the game to rock music, fans throwing up a "V' sign with their arms and this playing on video board:
Credit: Astros. Thanks, to Brian T. Smith for getting this
The ballpark video entertainment crew has always been top notch and it's good to see that despite all the other changes going on around the Astros they're still producing some killer work.
More importantly what this means is that Jose Veras is now the Astros bonafide closer. If case you haven't been paying attention to the Astros, Veras has secured a win for the Astros in eight of 14 victories. Of course, those of you that read our site regularly know that we use a newer statistic to help assess the effectiveness in a starter. For relievers in particular we like to look at the shutdown and meltdown statistics. Veras rates well in those statistics as well with nine shutdowns to only two metldowns.
Checking Veras' current numbers to his career numbers we see that he could give up a few more hits, walk a few more batters and give up a few more home runs; However, his FIP is lower than his ERA and relievers are volatile bunch so it's hard to predict how he'll perform the rest of the season. To this point, though, Veras has been the Astros best reliever and has motivated the Astros video production crew to make a killer graphic.