It's one of those amazing streaks you don't realize even exists until it's gone, but Mariano Rivera's blown save in Tuesday's game against the Mets was the first ever in his career in which he failed to record an out. He threw all of nine pitches, and gave up three hits in a row to Daniel Murphy, David Wright, and Lucas Duda.
Mariano Rivera blows save without an out for first time in 19-year career
Even on the rare occasion Rivera fails it’s historically noteworthy.
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The inning began with a double from Murphy, and then Wright followed up with an RBI single:
That single was enough to blow the save, as it was just a 1-0 game to begin the inning, and it made history, in a bad way, for Rivera. It was blown save #73 in his career in the regular season, and his 78th ever. He has 668 saves including the postseason in his 19-year career, and has converted 90 percent of all opportunities on his way to the all-time lead -- it’s incredible that the most ridiculous looking all of those numbers is the one that says he hadn’t blown a save without recording an out until Tuesday.
To make matters worse, Brett Gardner's throw to the plate rolled under the legs of Yankees' catcher Chris Stewart, allowing Wright to advance to second base and scoring position...
...setting up Lucas Duda's walk-off single:
That’s Rivera’s first blown save and first loss since his first appearance of 2012, back on April 6. He did miss five months of 2012 due to injury, sure, but still, that’s about three months of 0.99 ERA ball in between, and might we remind you that he’s 43 years old and retiring at season’s end?
Blowing a save and losing certainly isn’t optimal, but it did allow us to realize he had an insane streak going on up until then. Seems pretty worth it, so long as you’re not a Yankees fan, anyway.
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