Papelbon ties save mark

In case you didn't know, last night Jonathan Papelbon tied Bob Stanley's team record for saves, notching his 132nd save in a Red Sox uniform on just three pitches. That's sort of misleading since it was only a one out save haha. Well anyway, it's nice to see that we still have him under control after this season (2 more arbitration years). After that, he's going to the highest bidder and everyone knows it'll be the Yankees because the Sandman might retire by then.

He might be a tool, but he's OUR tool. For now...

Speaking of Mariano Rivera and speaking of saves, I'm not too much of a Red Sox homer to give props to a Yankee when props is due. Sunday night, the man known as the "Hammer of God, Mo, Sandman (as noted above) and The Panama Express" notched his 500th career save, which puts him in 2nd place all time behind Trevor Hoffman who has 571 saves. Pretty impressive, especially considering he has saved 89.1% of his save opportunities. Hoffman has saved 89.4% of his career save opportunities, but Hoffman has also played for 17 seasons, whereas Mo has played 15 seasons. I'm pretty sure that if they end up playing the same number of seasons, Mariano will be the all time saves leader. I'm okay with that.

Look at the butt on that. Yeah, he must work out.

I'm also okay with the fact that he has blown 12 saves (out of 56 chances) against the Red Sox, giving him a career save percentage of 79% against us. He blew 2 saves in a row in the 2004 ALCS (I was at Game 5), so thanks for helping us win the World Series that year. He also blew the save in the first meeting between the Sox/Yanks this season (I was also at that game) which set the stage for a current win total this season of: Red Sox 8, Yankees 0. At the end of the season, I can see the record evening out a bit though and I'll say that out of the 19 meetings, it'll be the Sox with 12 wins and the Yankees with 7.

So I'd like to celebrate two closers today. One up and coming potential star (Papelbon) and one surefire Hall of Famer (Rivera), who just happen to be polar opposites in terms of personality, but equals (so far) in terms of effectiveness. If you don't think they've both been equally effective, Papelbon has saved 132 out of 148 chances, giving him a save percentage of 89.2%. As a reminder, Rivera's career save percentage is 89.1%. And if Dodson is reading this, I'm not saying that Jonathan Papelbon is as good as Mariano Rivera since Rivera is a proven veteran and Papelbon is still relatively new. But the numbers are interesting thus far.

This is probably the last time anything (somewhat) positive will be written about a Yankee.