Landon Knack was called up from Triple-A on the final day of the regular season and filled that role with aplomb on Sunday. He followed Clayton Kershaw’s final regular season start by getting the final 11
outs in a win over Seattle.
Knack ended his own season on a high note, with arguably his best major league game of the season, retiring 11 of his 13 batters faced. He allowed a run and struck out seven, earning a save with his 3 2/3 innings.
On Sunday in addition to Knack, Jordan Wicks of the Cubs got a three-inning save of his own. That made for 49 saves of at least three innings across the majors this season, as if the league was doing guerrilla marketing for a certain baseball podcast. Forty-nine long saves are the most in any major league season since 1999, and a big increase over recent years:
3+ inning saves in MLB
Sunday was one of six days this season with multiple saves lasting at least three innings, along with March 31 (Colin Rea, Brant Hurter), April 20 (Randy Wynne, Tyler Alexander), May 7 (Matt Sauer, Taijuan Walker), July 4 (Jack Perkins, Jason Alexander), and August 23 (Ben Brown, Jake Woodford).
Since saves became an official MLB statistic in 1969, there have only been 14 saves of at least five innings. This year had two of them, by Janson Junk for the Marlins on May 24 and by Alan Rangel for the Phillies on June 27. There had only been two saves that long in the previous 31 years. The only other year with two saves of at least five innings was 1970, including one by Dodgers rookie Charlie Hough.
Four of the 49 saves of at least three innings in 2025 were by Dodgers pitchers:
April 27: Yoendrys Gómez, 3 scoreless innings in a 9-2 win over the Pirates. Gómez pitched for three teams (Yankees, Dodgers, White Sox) this season.
May 7: Matt Sauer, 4 innings, one unearned run allowed in 10-1 win in Miami. His first major league save, one week after earning his first major league win, also against the Marlins.
August 1: Justin Wrobleski, 3 scoreless innings in 5-0 win over the Rays. His second straight year with a save of at least three innings.
September 28: Landon Knack, 3 2/3 innings, one run allowed in 6-1 win in Seattle. His second straight year with a save of at least three innings.
Knack’s save on Sunday was the Dodgers’ first save of exactly 3 2/3 innings since Matt Young on July 5, 1987. Very coincidentally, Young was milling around in the Dodger Stadium press box with Orel Hershiser watching Clayton Kershaw’s final home start on September 19. In that 1987 game against the Pirates, it was Hershiser who started and allowed only one single in five scoreless innings, facing the minimum 15 batters.
But a stiff lower back ended Hershiser’s day early. By the time Alejandro Peña entered in relief, the Dodgers were up 6-0. But he walked four of his five batters faced, forcing in a run, and Tommy Lasorda turned to the left-hander Young, who was acquired from the Mariners the previous December.
Young got a double play to escape further damage in the sixth, stranded his own bases-loaded jam in the seventh, and was mostly unscathed the rest of the way for his seventh save of the season.
Hershiser quipped after the game to Terry Johnson of the San Pedro News-Pilot, “Matt Young told me to quit pitching so many complete games (he has six) because he wasn’t getting any save opportunities.”
Young was in a similarly jovial mood after the win.
“I haven’t pitched that long since I became a short-relief man for this team,” Young told Nick Leyva of the San Bernardino County Sun. “I jokingly asked Orel the other day when he was going to give me a chance to pick up a save. Today I asked him: ‘I liked this save opportunity, but don’t you think 3 2/3 innings is a bit much?‘”
Eleven outs as a save is a notable number in Dodgers lore, as that’s how long Steve Howe pitched to close out a championship-clinching win in Game 6 of the 1981 World Series. To date, that remains the only Dodgers save of at least three innings in the postseason. There have only been 19 MLB saves of at least three innings in the postseason at all since 1969, when saves became an official stat.
This year the Dodgers head into the postseason with a starting rotation so deep that the overflow of stretched-out arms will shift into a relief role this October. That means Emmet Sheehan and Clayton Kershaw, plus possibly even Roki Sasaki and Justin Wrobleski as potential candidates for a three-inning save this postseason. Is it likely? Maybe not, but a man can dream.
