Time to talk some more about long saves. Because last night, Taylor Rashi became the first pitcher in over forty years to start his career off with back-to-back saves of six outs or more. The last to do so was Lance McCullers. And no, not that one, unlike some on Twitter thought. It’s the father of the current Houston Astros pitcher, who has the same name, and made his MLB debut in August 1985. He took over as closer on the Padres from the injured Goose Gossage, and actually began with three such
saves, of 2.2, 3.2 and 2.1 innings, His five saves that season covered a total of thirteen innings.
Since the save statistic was invented by journalist Jerome Holtzman in 1959, the only other to match Rashi’s feat was John Urrea on the 1977 Cardinals. He went 2.2 and 2.1 innings for the save in his first two appearances, before a more “normal” one-out save. There was also some old-timers who did it, going all the way back 115 years to Bert Humphries for the Phillies in 2010. But can you really save a game before saving a game was a thing? Moving back to the present day, two games into Taylor’s career, and there is just one guy in the majors with more 6+ out saves this year: Jack Perkins of the Oakland Sacramento Athletics has three.
Rashi is also fast moving up the franchise list in the same department. He’s already tied for third in D-backs history. The only Arizona pitchers with more long saves are probably a bit of a surprise and thoroughly unsurprising respectively: Mike had four, and Byung-Hyun Kim seven. But collectively, last night’s occurrence brought the D-backs tally for 2025 to eight, the most ever in a season – the previous high was seven in 2000. Morgan and Kim were responsible for all but one, which belonged to Greg Swindell. Arizona also already has the most long saves in the majors since 2019, when Milwaukee had eleven and Minnesota nine.
