The big bad Lyon is back and its not good

Brandon Lyon was activated from the DL yesterday after being on it for over a month with bicep tendinits and a partial rotator cuff tear. This is not good news for anyone involved, especially with what Brad Mills said yesterday.

MLB.com Brian McTaggert wrote yesterday “Manager Brad Mills said that Lyon will return to the closer’s role, but not right away. Mark Melancon has been closing games since Lyon blew a save on May 4 in Cincinnati. Mark’s done a good job for us all year and is going to continue to do a good job,” Mills said. “He’s got the stuff, and is a good pitcher. We want to be able to do things the right way, and doing them the right way is being able to have veteran guys at the end of the game that have success in doing that in the past, like Brandon has. But to put him back in that role right now … I think we need to ease him back in.”

Really Brad Mills? How can you take a guy out who has six saves since May 4th with an ERA of 1.78 and 27 strikeouts for a guy who has an ERA of 7.15, blew his first save opportunity on Opening Day (yes, I haven’t forgotten) and only has four saves in eight attempts.

A move like this could crush the confidence of a young pitcher like Mark Melancon and to be honest it was probably already shaken with your quote yesterday. I am sure Mark is thinking right now what more he has to do to prove he is worthy of the closer role. Hopefully Mills keeps Melancon in the closer role but it doesn’t look good.