Orange County Register

Here is the promised post on left-handed closers sparked by the Angels’ signing of Brian Fuentes — who by the way is tied for 96th all-time (right or left) at 115 saves, with Tippy Martinez and B.J. Ryan (both also LH closers).

Dave LaRoche has the most career saves among Angels left-handers with 65.

The father of current Pirates infielders Adam and Andy LaRoche had two stints in Anaheim, 1970-71 and 1977-80. In 1978 Dave LaRoche led the Angels with 25 saves and also had an amazing 19 decisions (10 victories) in 59 relief appearances.

 There have been many left-handed closers in baseball history, many more than I initially realized (although I saw virtually every one of the ones mentioned in this article pitch).

The durable John Franco (pictured) heads the list. Here is the Top Ten in career saves, courtesy of baseball-reference.com:

John Franco                   424
(ranks fourth all-time)
Billy Wagner                  385 
(active LH leader, No. 6 total)
Randy Myers                 347
Dave Righetti                252
Sparky Lyle                   238
Mitch Williams              192
Eddie Guardado             187
(tied with Eric Gagne for 45th)
Tug McGraw                  180
Ron Perranowski            179
Dan Plesac                     158

Next on the list with 147 is Willie Hernandez, the 1984 American League MVP and CY Young Award winner.
Ryan and Baltimore’s George Sherrill are current lefty closers. Arthur Rhodes and Mike Gonzalez are recent LH closers. John Rocker, Mark Davis, Norm Charlton, John Hiller and Jim Brewer are other lefty closers of note.

Other baseball posts:

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.