MINNEAPOLIS — Eddie Guardado’s goatee is now speckled with gray, his left elbow not quite two years removed from ligament replacement surgery. That generously listed 6-foot frame looks even more stout than before.
Guardado hasn’t lost his fearless demeanor on the mound, though.
The gutsy approach that helped him twice become an All-Star closer for Minnesota despite a less-than-dominant repertoire of pitches has fueled his comeback from the infamous Tommy John operation en route to a mini-revival this year with Texas.
“He knows how to get three outs. He may throw some stuff up there y’all don’t understand, but he does get three outs,” Rangers manager Ron Washington said.
Perhaps Washington will soon contemplate giving Guardado the ball for the ninth inning again. Current closer C.J. Wilson blew a save for the second time in 10 tries Monday night against the Twins, and though most of them were given up with big leads Wilson has allowed 11 earned runs in his last 11 2-3 innings.
“We need to figure out a way to straighten him out,” Washington said. “We haven’t gotten there yet. We’ll talk about it and see what we have to do.”
The manager stopped short of suggesting a change was imminent.
“We certainly haven’t gotten to that point yet,” Washington said.
Guardado left Minnesota for Seattle in 2004, but he slumped in 2006 and lost his job as the ace reliever before being traded to Cincinnati and then badly damaging his elbow. He came back for the final two months of last season, but the results — a 7.24 ERA in 13 2-3 innings — weren’t pretty.
Of course Guardado, who signed with Texas for one year and $2 million plus up to $4 million more in performance bonuses, has never been about aesthetics.
He just takes the ball as much as he can and keeps throwing strikes, without worrying about the other guys hitting it. Though his durability took a hit when his elbow needed surgery, Guardado was adept at bouncing back after each appearance that he earned the nickname “Everyday Eddie.”
These days, he’s merely “Every-Other-Day Eddie,” but his presence in the Rangers bullpen has been valuable. Sure, being left-handed is one of baseball’s long-standing benefits, but it takes more than that to be pitching at age 37 in major league season No. 16.
“I think I put my heart and soul into what I accomplished, and I’m still here,” Guardado said.
Entering Tuesday’s game, Guardado has a 3.97 ERA in 11 1-3 innings with four walks and five strikeouts. In his last four appearances, he’s faced 13 batters and allowed only one hit.
“I can’t complain, man,” he said. “I never have. I never will. Everything’s going good.”
One of the leaders on the plucky 2002 Twins team that broke an 10-year playoff drought and advanced to the AL championship series, Guardado was always a popular fixture in the corner of the home clubhouse at the Metrodome. He doesn’t know many people here anymore, but his grit is still legendary. In 2001, he returned from torn meniscus cartilage in his knee after the minimum stay on the disabled list.
“He’s a tough guy,” Minnesota manager Ron Gardenhire said. “He’s not afraid of pain.”
Guardado said his “passion is closing” and that it’s “weird” not having that role, but he’s complimentary of Wilson and expressed an eagerness to mentor.
“I enjoy helping young kids out,” Guardado said.
The subject of an interview then turned to the Twins’ new ballpark, scheduled to open in 2010. Guardado said he probably wouldn’t be around for that.
“Nobody’s going to tell me I can’t do it,” he said. “I want to go out on my own terms. Obviously you’re going to always have that competitiveness in you. It’s just the days when you come to the ballpark and have to make it a job getting ready to pitch, and I don’t want that. When it comes to that, then I’ll hang it up. Right now I’m enjoying it.”
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