Should the Cardinals be worried about closer Trevor Rosenthal?

Cardinals closer Trevor Rosenthal has struggled this postseason, allowing 10 of the 21 batters he faced to reach base, but not surprisingly manager Mike Matheny is sticking with the 24-year-old right-hander in the ninth-inning role.

Here’s what Matheny told Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

He’s still our closer. Hopefully we have a lead late in the game and can go to him again. The people who have watched our club closely this season realize that [Game 2] was not that uncommon to what we’ve seen this year and still Trevor was right at the top of the list of closers in the [NL]. He finds a way to get it done.

“He finds a way to get it done” is a common refrain for closers right up until the time they stop finding that way, but Rosenthal converted 45 of 51 save chances during the regular season and allowed just one run in his final 11 appearances. Of course, he also walked 42 batters in 70 innings and his control was the problem in Game 2, leading to Matheny removing him from the game mid-inning.

If nothing else, Rosenthal figures to have a shorter leash for a while and Matheny may be a little quicker to have another reliever warming up in the bullpen during his appearances.

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