From http://www.baseball-almanac.com
A pitcher can earn a save by completing ALL three of the following items:
1. Finishes the game won by his team.
2. Does not receive the win.
3. Meets one of the following three items:
a: Enters the game with a lead of no more than three runs and pitches at least one inning.
b: Enters the game with the tying run either on base, at bat, or on deck.
c: Pitches effectively for at least three innings.
Eric Gagne is the closer for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team. This means that, when the Dodgers are barely winning near the end of a game, he is the pitcher brought in to preserve the lead. This situation is called a save chance, and on a good day, the closer will convert this into a save. Gagne is very very good at his job, and in 2003, put in the best regular season any closer ever has by converting every single save chance he had.
Eric Gagne is from Montreal, and grew up speaking French. He played hockey as a kid. When he was attending Seminole State College in Oklahoma to play baseball, he had to learn English fast. But this was when he found that he was willing to do everything necessary to be the best baseball player that he could be.
"That's the thing that told me, `Hey, I really want to be a baseball player because I'm going to make every sacrifice.' I knew then that I loved the game so much, I was going to fight for it, keep trying to get better at it -- and better at English."
Eric was drafted in 1995 by the Dodgers, and has stayed with them since that time. In 1999, Gagne started 5 games, compiling a record of 1-1 with an ERA of 2.10. During the following two years, Gagne started 43 games, winning only 10 and losing 13 with a combined ERA of 4.91, which is certainly nowhere near dominant. However, it was during the 2001 season that Eric began to be brought on as a reliever, coming into games already started rather than acting as a starting pitcher.
That's when things changed.
In 2002, Gagne pitched 82 and a third innings, recording 52 saves and 114 strikeouts with a 1.97 ERA. One of those saves was on Aug. 28. That date became important because he did not blow any saves after that during that year. A blown save is a save opportunity that is not converted because, for example, the pitcher enters the game to start the ninth inning with his team winning by 2 runs and gives up 3 runs to lose the game.
In 2003, Gagne again pitched 82 and a third innings, this time recording 55 saves and 137 strikeouts with a 1.20 ERA. During the entirety of that year, he did not blow any saves, except at the All-Star game to Hank Blalock, which does not count for record-keeping purposes.
In 2004 so far, Gagne has recorded 10 straight saves without blowing any. This means that he has 73 saves in a row and counting, which is a major league record streak.
There are other ways that Gagne's young career has been historic. In 2003 he received the National League Cy Young Award, making him only the 9th reliever in either league to win this award, usually earmarked for the more popular starting pitchers. Gagne is the only pitcher in history to get two 50-save seasons. Out of all pitchers ever who have pitched 75 innings worth of baseball in a season, Gagne held opponents to a batting average of .133, the lowest in history. His 2003 year was amazing in many ways, but one way to look at it would be to consider his ERA when entering the game in a save chance, when the pressure is on and everyone is expecting him to perform to keep the streak alive. During the 55 times in 2003 when Gagne had a save chance, his ERA was 0.32, giving up only 2 runs in 57 innings pitched. That's amazing. The worst part about the great season for Gagne is that he wasn't able to enjoy it, because his team did not make the playoffs.
According to
ESPN.com's
scouting report on Gagne at the beginning of the 2004 season, he gets the job done with three main
pitches. He has a 95-98
MPH fastball and two off-speed pitches. He uses a "
vulcan changeup" which comes across in the upper 80 MPH range with some
screwball motion and a big drop, and a slow
curveball around 70 MPH which he throws for a
strike.
Year Tm Lg W L G GS GF CG SHO SV IP H R ER HR BB SO HBP WP BFP ERA
+-------------+---+---+----+---+----+---+---+----+------+----+----+----+---+----+----+----+---+-----+-----+
1999 LAD NL | 1 1 5 5 0 0 0 0 30.0 18 8 7 3 15 30 0 1 119 2.10
2000 LAD NL | 4 6 20 19 0 0 0 0 101.3 106 62 58 20 60 79 3 4 464 5.15
2001 LAD NL | 6 7 33 24 3 0 0 0 151.7 144 90 80 24 46 130 16 3 649 4.75
2002 LAD NL | 4 1 77 0 68 0 0 52 82.3 55 18 18 6 16 114 2 1 314 1.97
2003 LAD NL | 2 3 77 0 67 0 0 55 82.3 37 12 11 2 20 137 3 2 306 1.20
2004 LAD NL | 7 3 70 0 59 0 0 45 82.3 53 24 20 5 22 114 5 2 326 2.19
+-------------+---+---+----+---+----+---+---+----+------+----+----+----+---+----+----+----+---+-----+-----+
Season total | 24 21 282 48 197 0 0 152 530.0 413 214 194 60 179 604 29 13 2178 3.29
+-------------+---+---+----+---+----+---+---+----+------+----+----+----+---+----+----+----+---+-----+-----+
162 Game Avg | 4 4 58 9 40 0 0 31 109.0 85 44 39 12 36 124 5 2 448 3.29
Stats from http://www.baseball-reference.com
This is a Time Sensitive Node, so I will update it periodically.