{"id":70637,"date":"2024-04-15T14:30:29","date_gmt":"2024-04-15T18:30:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=70637"},"modified":"2024-04-15T14:09:26","modified_gmt":"2024-04-15T18:09:26","slug":"craig-kimbrel-orioles-closer-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/04\/15\/craig-kimbrel-orioles-closer-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Orioles Closer Climbs Elite List with Historic Achievements"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Baltimore Orioles closer Craig Kimbrel became one of the most decorated closers of all time after achieving new <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2018\/05\/06\/craig-kimbrel-saves-300\/\" target=\"_self\">career milestones<\/a>. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2023\/08\/26\/felix-bautista-ucl-injury\/\" target=\"_self\">F\u00e9lix Bautista sidelined<\/a>, Baltimore\u2019s front office signed the veteran reliever<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> to close out games for the club this season. The 35-year-old hasn\u2019t been lighting up the radar gun in his first outings with Baltimore, but he hasn\u2019t needed to. His command has improved and the spin rates on his four-seam and knuckle curve are nearing career highs. Only six innings into his Orioles tenure he&#8217;s become one of the most decorated closers of all time.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When Kimbrel closed out the Orioles 5-2 win over the Pittsburgh Pirates on April 5, the nine-time All-Star made history. His first save with the Orioles marked the eighth different team Kimbrel has recorded a regular-season save for. According to <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">MLB Stats<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, he&#8217;s now tied for the second-most all-time. Adding in his latest save for the Orioles on Sunday, Kimbrel now has 420 career saves. His 420 career saves rank eighth all-time and second among active players trailing only <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/j\/janseke01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kenley Jansen<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with 424.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Craig Kimbrel has now recorded a regular season save for 8 Major League clubs. \ud83d\udd25 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/bpWWM5L3MF\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/bpWWM5L3MF<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 MLB Stats (@MLBStats) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLBStats\/status\/1777009395475554476?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">April 7, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Orioles Closer Craig Kimbrel Climbs List of Elite Closers<\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kimbrel gave up one hit to <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/i\/isbelky01.shtml\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kyle Isbel<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> in his Orioles debut and retired 15 batters without a hit before allowing two singles on Sunday. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201c1-2-3 feels good every time,\u201d said Kimbrel, who has 11 strikeouts in six innings this season. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He is one of six pitchers in major league history to record 1,000 strikeouts without a single career start. On Thursday, Kimbrel became the first and only pitcher to reach 1,200 strikeouts without a career start. Including his three strikeouts on Sunday, Kimbrel has struck out 1,203 batters throughout his 15-year career in the majors. Kimbrel\u2019s 980 career ninth-inning strikeouts is the <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/codifybaseball\/status\/1779622437883396311?s=46&amp;t=rgryFWhxsXDdw7thFRmMWA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">MLB record<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for most career strikeouts in a given inning.<\/span><\/p>\n<h3>Kimbrel&#8217;s Save History<\/h3>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Kimbrel began his career with the Atlanta Braves in 2010, becoming their full-time closer in 2011. In his rookie season, Kimbrel\u2019s 46 saves set the MLB record for most saves by a rookie. He was named an All-Star and was awarded the National League Rookie of the Year in 2011. Kimbrel led the National League in saves for four consecutive seasons (2011-14) and is a two-time Reliever of the Year. While in Boston, Kimbrel won the World Series and became the youngest pitcher in MLB history to record 300 career saves.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even though his velocity isn\u2019t what it was early in his 15-year career, Kimbrel is still one of the league\u2019s best closers. He has yet to walk a batter and has given up just one run in six appearances with the Orioles. Craig Kimbrel is one of baseball\u2019s most accomplished pitchers and has been a worthy replacement for <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/02\/10\/orioles-bautista-second-surgery\/\" target=\"_self\">the injured Bautista<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201cI\u2019m happy with how it\u2019s playing,\u201d Kimbrel said. \u201cRight now, I\u2019m just out there pitching, and I\u2019m trying to miss bats still, no matter what the velocity is. I mean, I\u2019m getting guys out with spin. Overall, the way the ball is coming out of my hand, I like it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Main Photo: \u00a9 Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Baltimore Orioles closer Craig Kimbrel became one of the most decorated closers of all time after achieving new career milestones. With F\u00e9lix Bautista sidelined, Baltimore\u2019s front office signed the veteran reliever to close out games for the club this season. The 35-year-old hasn\u2019t been lighting up the radar gun in his first outings with Baltimore, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4975,"featured_media":70651,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1071],"tags":[48,240,5662,432],"class_list":["post-70637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-orioles","category-mlb","tag-atlanta-braves","tag-boston-red-sox","tag-felix-bautista","tag-kenley-jansen"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4975"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70637\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}