Okay, so, let’s talk about single-season save records. This whole thing started when I was watching a game back in 2005, and I saw this pitcher, Britton, trying to beat Eric Gagne’s record. You know, Gagne had this crazy streak of 84 consecutive saves between 2002 and 2004. That got me thinking, who’s got the most saves in a single season? And who had the most career saves?
So, I started digging around. My first step was just casual browsing, you know, the usual sports websites and forums. I found out that Rivera has the most career saves, a whopping 652. That’s just insane! And he also holds the Yankees’ single-season record with 53 saves in 2004, which was his second time getting 50 saves in a season. I also found a few records for single-season saves were bumped from the leaders for saves.
Then I decided to get a bit more serious. I went to the Baseball Almanac, which is like the bible for this kind of stuff. I learned that in 2005, thirteen closers bumped the save records of others, which is a lot. They had a whole list of single-season save leaders, and it’s pretty interesting to see how the record has changed over the years.
Then, I got a little distracted. The Almanac mentioned something about the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and I ended up spending an hour reading about that. It’s not directly related to saves, but it’s still pretty cool.
After that detour, I got back on track. I wanted to find out who actually held the single-season record. More searching led me to Francisco Rodriguez. It was in 2008, he saved his 58th game on September 13th. That’s how he beat Bobby Thigpen’s record, which had stood for 18 years. Man, can you imagine the pressure in that game? Rodriguez finished that season with 62 saves, which is still the record today.
Here’s a quick list of what I found, just to keep it all straight:
- Most Career Saves: Mariano Rivera (652)
- Yankees’ Single-Season Record: Mariano Rivera (53 in 2004)
- Most Saves in a Single Season: Francisco Rodriguez (62 in 2008)
So yeah, that’s my little journey into the world of single-season save records. It started with a simple question while watching a game and ended with me geeking out on baseball stats. It’s funny how these things go, right?
