He turns 40 on August 9^th but he will be (and currently still is) one of the most crucial pieces to the Rays American League title defense. And that would be no other than closer Troy Percival who saved his fourth game of the season on Tuesday.

I’ve been waiting a long time for this guy to crumble on the mound kind of the way Bryce Florie did, but hopefully in a more humane and less bloody type of way. It’s not that I hope for him to get injured, it’s just that I saw the 2005 season, the non 2006 season, and the injury plagued 2008 season and what I gathered from that was nothing too positive.

It’s inevitable that the future hall of fame closer who ranks fourth on the current list of active closers (if you include Billy Wagner as active) won’t be able to last the season unharmed like it was inevitable that Kim Bauer was going to make a return to 24 at some point.

However, Percival is defying all odds (or at least from my standards) as the Rays closer. Percival still needs help from the other members of the pen to limit his outings to one inning outings. Or better yet, getting a save after pitching a third of an inning as he did on Tuesday would be ideal.

Because the Rays season has been so out of whack, he hasn’t had many chances for saves. It seems as if Tampa Bay either wins big or loses the game. Before he racked up his third save on May 3^rd, Percival had a stretch of four games where he came into the game with his team losing.

The one thing that many of the so called experts wrote off about the Rays is that they didn’t have that shut down closer as the Red Sox do with Jonathan Papelbon and as the Yankees do with Mariano Rivera; and personally, I don’t blame them.

If Percival somehow manages being effective and not finding himself on an extended vacation on the disabled list, the Rays have a chance to go back to the top of the class in the American League.