Saving a 30-3 baseball game
August 22nd, 2007 by Tank
Today Texas eked out a 30-3 victory over Baltimore (in baseball). According to espn.com, Wes Littleton recorded his first save of the year in the game. My question is this: how the hell can anyone “save” a game their team is winning 14-3 when they enter the game? It seems like a rather damning indictment of the statistic. Am I missing something?
August 23rd, 2007 at 9:08 am
You beat me to the punch. I was going to offer that nugget as well. It *is* a rather damning indictment of the statistic, and clearly illustrates the need to look far beyond the save statistic when evaluating relievers.
And the official rule is if you work 3 innings to close a game, regardless of score, you “earn” a save. This occasionally comes up when a guy gets a save coming into a blowout… but usually the blowouts are *less* than ten runs - not 27 runs (or as you note, even just 11 runs at the time of the pitcher’s entry into the game).