St. Louis Cardinals closer Ryan Helsley had converted 31 straight save attempts heading into Friday night's extra-innings affair with the Washington Nationals. He's already made team history, with the most Cardinals saves prior to the All-Star Break and most consecutive saves completed in team history.
However, his streak was ultimately taken from him Friday thanks to a rule that, as Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch put it, "did not exist five years ago, let alone in any of the previous 100 years when no Cardinal matched Helsley’s feat."
Ryan Helsley's streak is broken, but for a good cause
Unfortunately for Helsley, his streak was broken, as an unearned run came across to score. Perhaps more importantly, the Cardinals would win the game thanks in large part to their closer, who shook off the disappointment of losing his historic moment and pitched another inning.
“Laughed about it: ‘Well, my streak’s over, so I need to go out there and fight for the win, for the team,’” Helsley said. “Our bullpen is pretty taxed. I felt good. I’ll take the ball if he’ll give it to me. He told me, ‘It’s yours.’"
After a loss on Saturday, the Cardinals are four games over .500 and remain in the heart of the NL Wild Card race. Marmol's teaching moment with Helsley could go a long way in the grand scheme of the postseason race. Every game counts, and Marmol trusted his taxed closer enough to send him back out there. Frankly, Marmol's been criticized for doing the exact opposite at times in 2024.
“It was wild,” Helsley said. “Got down big early, and the guys fought back. Huge win for us as a team. We clawed our way back. A lot of guys are gassed and giving it everything we’ve got. Huge win, from top to bottom, for everybody on the team.”
Did Ryan Helsley, Cardinals get screwed out of record-setting streak?
Rob Manfred's sweeping extra-innings changes have, for the large part, become the new normal. Yes, it took baseball fans awhile to adjust, but the games were too long. The relatively new "ghost runner" rule typically limits extra innings to an hour or less. Much like the shootout in hockey, not everyone likes the rule, but it's here to stay and largely appeals to a young audience.
Now, as to whether said rule change is good for baseball, we need a larger sample size. Manfred opted to keep the rule in place following the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. While some of the experiments from that year didn't make the cut, the ghost runner did, and it's altered a game predicated on statistics and records forever.