Braves' Player Recap: Chad Durbin

Today the Braves' recap continues with reliever Chad Durbin.
Durbin broke into the big leagues back in 1999 with the Kansas City Royals. Since then, he has played with the Cleveland Indians, Arizona Diamondbacks, Detroit Tigers, Philadelphia Phillies, back to Cleveland and then with Atlanta this past year. He started the 2012 season with the Washington Nationals during spring training, but they deemed him not good enough, released him, and the Braves signed him.
At first, it looked like a bad pick-up for the Braves. Through his first fourteen games of the season, Durbin allowed eleven runs, including five home runs and his ERA was a whopping 8.25. After that, he seemed to settle down and turned in a fine season, one of the best of his career actually. He also got a little revenge on the Nationals for releasing him on August 21st, when he entered the game and struck out all three batters he faced.
Durbin came into multiple games when the Braves were in tough situations, and he was able to get out of them. He was able to do that with his good sinking ball, which in turn would get the batters to hit ground balls and the Braves could turn double-plays. Durbin finished the year with some great numbers. He was 4-1 with 49 strikeouts on the year and a save. He also brought that ballooning ERA of 8.25 down to a respectable 3.10, his best since the 2008 season with the Phillies.
Durbin is a free agent this winter. The Braves have many good, young arms down in the bullpen so Durbin could be out of the picture in Atlanta. He would definitely get a chance somewhere else after the year he had. If the Braves were smart though, they would make it a priority to bring him back for another season to provide some veteran leadership in what is a very young relief staff.