Mariano Rivera is the New All-Time MLB Saves Leader

After pitching a perfect ninth inning, Mariano Rivera stood on the mound at Yankees Stadium and blew a kiss to the cheering crowd of 40,045 fans -- the smallest in the stadium's three year history.

Rivera, shutting the door on his New York Yankees’ 6-4 win over the Minnesota Twins, became the new all-time saves leader after recording his 602nd career save on Monday. The 41-year-old closer put down Trevor Plouffe, Michael Cuddyer, and Chris Parmelee in order to snap Trevor Hoffman’s mark set before his retirement last season.

Happy Trails, Trevor Hoffman

After 18 seasons in the big leagues, Trevor Hoffman has finally decided to hang up his cleats.

Baseball's all-time saves leader, who many consider to be the National League's all-time greatest closer, is trading Hells Bells for a cushy desk job with the San Diego Padres front office. He had this to say during his retirement announcement at the podium atop Petco Park's home plate Wednesday:

Liveblog at Walkoff Walk!

It's been a busy morning so far, so I'm going to go ahead and link to some great stories around the blogosphere instead of actually using my brain.

The SportsBubbler is pumped to have Trevor Hoffman back in action.

Very Small Talk is glad fans are now getting a "bargain" on tickets at the spankin' new Yankee Stadium.

Read about Jorge Cantu! believing in himself at his very own big league blog.

Cubs Hub details Big Z's near-cycle. Oh, what could have been.

Anyway, I get the joy of live-blogging Johan Santana and the New York Mets vs. Josh Johnson and the Florida Marlins, whose bandwagon I abandoned earlier this week, over at Walkoff Walk. If you've never been to this blog, I demand you go there immediately. It's my favorite. Seriously. Right. Now.

Wednesday's Babelicious Scoreboard

Padres 5, Dodgers 2

Trevor Hoffman was an unknown 25-year-old with only two saves under his belt when the San Diego Padres obtained him in a controversial five-player deal in May of 1993. His was one of the big trades of the Padres' "fire sale" that year as they dumped as many big salaries as they could.

Fourteen years later, the 39-year-old righty trotted out to AC/DC's "Hell's Bells", as usual in the ninth inning. Nomar Garciaparra led off with a double, but Hoffman retired the side for his 18th save in 20 chances this season for a 5-2 victory over the Los Angeles Dodgers.

David Wells and Heath Bell hoisted Hoffman on their shoulders, surrounded by his teammates and carried him off the field to celebrate his big league-record 500th career save.

Hoffman acknowledged the berserk, standing crowd and commenced the toasting and champagne-drinking in the clubhouse.

Geoff Blum drove in four runs to aid Greg Maddux's sharp outing, and the win kept the Padres in first place in the NL West. San Diego has won four straight and nine of 11. The newest Padre, Hiram Bocachica was on with a double ahead of each of Blum's hits. He also drove in a run in the third.

Jeff Kent had three hits for the Dodgers, including a solo homer off Maddux who has won five straight home starts. He held the Dodgers to two runs on five hits over 6.1 innings, walking one with no strikeouts for his 338th career victory.

Los Angeles starter Randy Wolf lasted five innings, and was handed his first loss since April 30th. He allowed five runs and eight hits, struck out six and walked three.

That's A Lot Of Goose Eggs

Nine games into the season, the seven San Diego Padres relievers - all rightys - have combined to throw the equivalent of three straight shutouts, plus 1.1 innings. They've also earned three of the team's six wins. That's more than 28 scoreless innings of baseball.

The bullpen is closing in on the longest stretch of scoreless relief in club history: 32 innings set over 17 days in the dog days of summer, August 1978.

We might find this incredibly impressive, but for the most part, the relievers are treating the streak in the same manner a starter deals with a no-hitter in progress.

They don't talk about it. Just ask closer Trevor Hoffman, baseball's all-time saves leader with 484.

I think it's something that nobody really wants to talk about, to be honest with you. You're a couple of crooked numbers away from blowing this thing up and nobody's going to give a crap in July. It's something where if a run's given up, I don't think it's going to change the demeanor of how people are going to approach their game plan.

The Padres relief corps have allowed just 12 hits and four walks during the insane streak, striking out 23 batters with only one of eight inherited runners allowed to score.

[San Diego Union-Tribune]