New all-time saves champion

Trevor Hoffman of the Padres saved his 479th career game today, breaking Lee Smith's Major League record. Hoffman will become one of the rare relief pitchers to make it to the Hall of Fame.

It's rare in general, but the reason I am making this comment is that the bar has thus far been extremely high for relievers because not all saves are created equal and there isn't an equivalent of 3000 hits, 300 wins, or 500 homeruns. In fact, only a couple pure relief pitchers are in the Hall and even most of the saves leaders -- including Lee Smith -- aren't ever going to make it. The other active reliever who will ultimately be enshrined in Cooperstown is Mariano Rivera, who will also end up surpassing Hoffman's save total before he retires.

Now that I'm done congratulating Hoffman, there is some seriously bad news to go with it. The fact he got a save means that the Padres won. The Phillies also won. Thus, even though Nomaaaaaaah hit a walk-off grand slam today, the Dodgers remain 1.5 games behind the Padres in the West and .5 games behind the Phillies in the Wild Card. Both the Padres and Phillies have been playing well, so we need to get our butts in gear. We have 6 games left, and we can't depend on our two competitors to fumble.