Another Rick Ankiel. I'm surprised there aren't more

Can you actually *be* Rick Ankiel at 37?

I think Bard is a neat story -- one time high-flying prospect who didn't pan out but then somehow resurrected his career and amazingly became a late innings force late in his career.... but - 1)all respect and love to mental health maintenance, but "anxiety" and "closer" are like water and oil, and 2)you gotta throw strikes

I think it's interesting that 2) actually seems to take several flavors... Bard seems to be the Blass/Ankiel/etc case - just completely loses command. But - I remember when Carlos Marmol went to ####. He wasn't - initially at least - throwing sliders to the backstop. He just couldn't hit his spots, batters started laying off, and then the problem compounded (and he *did* start throwing sliders to the backstop).

I suppose it seems to me like there are two flavors of... Blassiansim... Either something goes haywire and you cannot command your pitches on any given sequence to save your life vs. a bit of snap goes away and your attempts to compensate just compound and it gets worse and worse until you're done.

I think it's progress that there is more acceptance out there that "look, this is a human being. and if retiring (presumably with a nice bank account) is the smartest thing for him, then let's just wish him well on his journey.

he already gave us an amazing comeback story. he sure as hell doesn't owe us another one - but of course I'd be intrigued to see it play out.

I think Bard is a neat story -- one time high-flying prospect who didn't pan out but then somehow resurrected his career and amazingly became a late innings force late in his career....

I wouldn't say he was a prospect that didn't pan out. He was a phenomenal set-up man with nearly 80 Holds his first three seasons with a 2.88 ERA. The issue didn't arise until they tried to move him to the rotation in 2012. That's when his BB/9 was higher than his K/9.

Wait, was this loss of control due to hitting Altuve or was that part of a larger collapse? It seems like a specific act of hitting one guy (other than Ray Chapman cases) would be easier to address than a whole spring of trouble (eg a call with Altuve or whatever.) But as mentioned above, I hope he just gets a handle on the bigger picture before feeling any pressure to get back on that horse again.

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#5 Bard was also hit hard in the game against Mexico (4 ER in 0.2 IP, with 1 BB and 1 HBP) but he threw 22 of 33 pitches for strikes. He then pitched a scoreless inning against Columbia with 8 strikes in 14 pitches and 1 BB. I didn’t see his appearances but it seems like the Venezuela game was the first one where he really had these type of issues.