Mariano Rivera Has a 0.70 ERA in the Postseason and One Pitch

Mariano Rivera pitched 141 postseason innings and allowed 11 earned runs, a 0.70 ERA, with 42 saves and an 8-1 record. He saved 652 games in the regular season, more than anyone, and he did nearly all of it with a single pitch that every hitter knew was coming.

The postseason line is the one that has no comparison anywhere in baseball. 141 innings is most of a starting pitcher season, compiled entirely in elimination games and one-run leads across sixteen Octobers. His career regular season ERA was 2.21, so he was not merely good in the playoffs, he was substantially better in them than in the games that did not matter.

What makes it strange is the simplicity. Rivera threw a cut fastball, and then he threw it again. There was no changeup to set it up, no breaking ball to look at. Hitters walked to the plate knowing the pitch, the velocity and roughly the location, and for nineteen years it did not help, because the ball moved late enough to catch the handle of the bat rather than the barrel.

The pitch broke bats at a rate nobody has matched, which is why left-handed hitters, who should have had the platoon advantage, fared no better than right-handers. He finished 952 games. In 2019 he became the first player in the history of the Baseball Hall of Fame to be elected unanimously, all 425 votes, and there was no serious argument about it.

Trevor Hoffman saved 601 games and was the best closer in the National League for a decade with a changeup as good as any pitch of its era. Billy Wagner missed more bats per inning than either of them. There is also a legitimate structural objection to the whole position: a closer throws roughly 70 innings a year, a third of what a starter throws, so even a perfect one is worth less than a good number two starter.

That objection is fair against relievers generally and it is exactly what Rivera answers. The 141 postseason innings, all of them in the highest-leverage situations the sport produces, is the biggest sample of pressure baseball anyone has, and he was nearly unscored upon in it.

The verdict: Mariano Rivera. Unanimous, and the postseason record is untouchable.