BOSTON - Has Koji Time turned into Tazawa Time?
For the time being, anyways.
With Koji Uehara out for the season after suffering a non-displaced distal radius fracture in his right wrist, Junichi Tazawa has taken on the closer role for the Red Sox.
After blowing his first save on Aug. 11 in Miami, Tazawa has rebounded to convert his last two save opportunities - and on back-to-back nights, too.
Tazawa set the Indians down in order to preserve a 6-4 Red Sox win on Wednesday, and then came back out on Thursday and did the same thing to the Royals to give the Sox a 4-1 victory.
He got Kendrys Morales swinging before Mike Moustakas lined out to center field and Salvador Perez grounded out to shortstop.
"His split was good tonight," Ryan Hanigan said. "He had a good split-action change, he was throwing it for a strike and he was expanding it below the zone. Good curveball to get ahead of that first hitter there, good fastball to get ahead of the second hitter. Yeah it was tough going. It was good. Just keep getting sharper. Get a couple guys on-base and things get a little dicey there with [the Royals], so it was nice to have a nice little clean inning."
Speaking through a translator after Thursday's win, Tazawa said he has no preference on being the set-up man or the closer - he just wants to contribute to the team.
But he was quick to note the big difference between the two roles.
"Probably the only difference would be that if I get into a jam there's no Koji to get me out of it," Tazawa quipped.
There's no reason that Tazawa won't remain in the closer role the rest of the way. But what about beyond that?
"I don't think that way," Tazawa said. "You can never predict the future."