Pitchers are the focal point of baseball. They stand elevated in the middle of the diamond and the middle of the tv screen. They control the pace and the energy of a game. A pitching change doesn’t just bring in new arm angles and a different velocity, it also brings a fundamental change in the feel of the game.
So it is, in particular, with closers. It’s Mariano Rivera walking to the mound at Yankee Stadium as Enter Sandman plays. It’s the nervous tension of a game nearly won, but also a game that could easily be lost.