congratulations go out to Mariano Rivera

Rivera closed out the Yankees win over Minnesota yesterday, for career save number 602.  He now holds the all-time record.

The save was also his 40th.  This is his 8th season of 40+ saves.  Only Trevor Hoffman, with 9, has more.  No other pitcher in history has more than 4.

One other footnote.  It was noted that Brad Lidge is second to Rivera in all time post season saves.  I'd wondered who was #2 to Rivera's 42, and how many.  It's Lidge it turns out.  With 18.

I'm not sure whether that record will be touched for a long time.  Sure there are lots more playoff games for a team than there used to be.  But you have to make alot of deep playoff runs.  Rivera has won 5 World Series.  He's played in a 6th that went 7 games.  Most of their other long long string of playoff appearances, broken by only one season in his career when they didn't make the post-season, have ended in ALCS appearances at the very least.

Someone isn't going to approach that record (and Rivera will likely add to it this October) by playing in a World Series or two, then flaming out in a bunch of Divisional Series.   You'd need alot of deep playoff runs.  So either another era of dominance or a guy getting bounced around alot to many different playoff contenders.

The Phillies have won 5 straight NL Easts.  They've won a World Series and lost another.  Still Lidge isn't even close and it seems like he's already at or past his expiration date, in that short shelf life of a typical Major League closer.  Usually the good ones are sharp for maybe 5 years then the wheels start falling off.

Eric Gagne is a prime example.  He converted 84 straight save opportunities for the Dodgers from 2002-2004.  He racked up season totals of 52, 55, and 45 over the 3 seasons.  But he never saved more than 16 games in a season after that and was out of baseball after 2008 with 187 career saves.

So hats off to Rivera.  And he does it with pretty much 1 pitch, his cut fastball, that nobody has ever solved in terms of hitting it consistently well. He more or less became the first pitcher to use that particular pitch.