Should We Overreact?

Trevor Hoffman has now appeared in 8 games this season. After last night's 7-3 loss to the Pirates, Mr. Hoffman has given up runs in 5 of those contests. He's also allowed 16 base runners and 12 runs in 8 innings of work. He is also 42. Rust or Gassed? We just don't know at this point.

One thing I do know is that Mr. Hoffman has only had one season since 2002 in which his ERA was over 2.98. And he was fantastic last year. He should get the benefit of the doubt.

Then again, we're in uncharted territory here. Mariano Rivera is still going strong, but he's *only* 40. Dennis Eckersly was closing games at 42, but his last season of "lights out" pitching was at 37. And Eck was 42 over a decade ago. Times change, and with that come advances in training (yoga/pilates) and medicine ("medicine"). We don't really know when Mr. Hoffman will drop off. Let's give him 20 more games and reevaluate then...