The former, rarely used Seattle Mariners hurler goes down in rare history as a postseason run-con

The New York Yankees defeated the Cleveland Guardians on Monday night in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series. With the win, New York leads the best-of-seven series 1-0 and is just three wins away from the World Series.

Juan Soto and Giancarlo Stanton hit home runs in the win, while Carlos Rodon threw six brilliant innings, striking out nine of them.

In the bullpen, Luke Weaver pitched 1.2 scoreless innings to secure the save. He recorded four strikeouts and recorded his fourth save of the pot season, putting him in a rare group in baseball history.

According to MLB.com's Sarah Langs on social media:

Luke Weaver is the 6th pitcher with 4 saves in his team's first 5 games of the postseason (official saves since 1969), joining:

2023 Paul Sewald
2016 Cody Allen
2011 Neftali Feliz
1996 Mark Wohlers
1988 Dennis Eckersley

Weaver's rise this season has been pretty incredible. A former top prospect, Weaver struggled to hit the ground running as a starting pitcher with the St. Louis Cardinals and Arizona Diamondbacks (2016-2021). He went 23-35 during that span and then became a reliever in 2022. He had an ERA of 6.56 in 2022 and also an ERA of 6.40 in 2023.

In 2023, he appeared in five games for the Seattle Mariners, going 0-1 with a 6.08 ERA. The Mariners have typically been good at unlocking backup players (Paul Sewald, Justin Topa, Casey Sadler, Drew Steckenrider) but haven't been able to get that kind of performance out of Weaver in the midst of the 2023 playoff chase.

He landed with the Yankees at the end of 2023 and posted a 7-3 record with a 2.89 ERA that season. He struck out 103 batters in 84.0 innings.

The Yankees and Guardians play Game 2 on Tuesday night.

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