SAN FRANCISCO — Ryan Helsley steered his truck toward the exit of the Cardinals’ spring training parking lot last March when he paused to talk with a reporter, do some quick math, and describe just what was possible if he got a chance to add up a season, one ninth inning at a time.
He figured he had seven saves as the closer in September.
Repeat that over a six-month schedule and, voila, he’d finish with 42.
That was a big number, he noted.
“It would be cool to have a 30-plus save season,†he said, leaning out the car window. “As a closer, you could hang your hat on that.â€
He had more consecutive saves than that hook, zoomed right past 42, too, and, on Friday night at Oracle Park, drove himself to a place no other Cardinals closer had been. With a scoreless ninth inning against the San Francisco Giants to finish an 6-3 victory, Helsley collected his 49th save of the season. He hooked a curveball under LaMonte Wade Jr.’s swing to surpass Trevor Rosenthal’s club record 48 saves set in 2015 and stand out alone, same as he’s done in the ninth inning all season for the Cardinals and atop all closers in the National League.
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And Helsley’s 49 saves will remain the record as the Cardinals will avoid using the right-hander in the regular season finale Sunday.
Helsley’s final save of the season secured the Cardinals’ 82nd win to assure them a winning record for the 84th time since joining the NL.
Helsley has the save or win in 68% of the Cardinals’ wins.
“Every time we gave him the ball he was filthy,†manager Oliver Marmol said.
“Any time he comes in you can grab your coffee, take a sip, and just kind of watch the show,†said Miles Mikolas, Friday’s winning pitcher.
Pouring the foundation
Shortly before calculating the possibilities in the parking lot, Helsley met with Marmol and pitching coach Dusty Blake to discuss the team’s plan to assign him the ninth. He no longer would float from inning to inning based on matchup, no longer be asked to do multiple innings multiple times a week. He would be a classic closer. And preparing for that role began long before he sat in that seminal meeting for the 2024 Cardinals and their record-setting closer. He was doing it while on the injured list the season before.
Already frustrated with the first half of the 2023 season and almost as many saves (seven) as blown saves (four), Helsley went on the IL because of a strained right forearm. He used that time to start quizzing teammates on mindset. He spoke to Andrew Miller about his run as a dominant reliever, to Adam Wainwright about his success as a starter and in October, and even to position players such as Nolan Arenado and Paul Goldschmidt. Helsley realized he was letting “frustration†with his role and his wish to be a closer disrupt his performance.
“I’ve got to be a little bit more mentally tough,†Helsley said he realized. “The biggest thing (from his teammates) for me was each new day was an opportunity.â€
When he returned from injury, he had seven saves in his final eight appearances.
That slingshot him into this season and the commitment to keep him at closer. He saw that opportunity as a responsibility.
“Knowing that I was only going to be a one-inning-at-a-time-type of guy, I felt kind of obligated that I needed to be available for 95% of the games and do whatever I could to harness that,†Helsley said. “And be ready for that moment.â€
Finding consistency
Of his 65 appearances this season, 61 have been exactly one inning long, and 63 of them were one inning or less. Helsley blitzed into the NL lead for saves by converting 31 consecutive opportunities, and the night the streak snapped it came in extra innings when Washington started the inning with a free runner in scoring position.
Marmol recalled Friday what Helsley said when he returned to the dugout.
“One of my favorite moments was when he had streak going and it was broken by that extra-inning rule,†Marmol said. “He came back in and said, ‘I’m going out there for the next inning. If they’re going to break it, at least I want the win.’ That shows you a lot about, hey, we want you for three outs at a time, and for him to come in and say I’m giving you six today because we have a chance to win. That shows exactly where he was mentally this year.â€
The Cardinals pursued the record for Helsley in the past week, even attempting Thursday to slip a close game to Helsley at Coors Field.
On Friday, Lars Nootbaar’s second homer in as many days and his two-run triple helped rally the Cardinals from a two-run deficit into a three-run lead in the fourth inning. And there it froze. Mikolas allowed three runs in a noisy second inning, and then held firm for the remainder of his five innings. In the third, the veteran right-hander allowed the first two runners to reach base before striking out two and holding the Giants scoreless.
“I finally got myself out of a mess that I put myself into,†Mikolas said.
The Cardinals’ three-run lead and save opportunity remained in the top of the ninth, though the Cardinals had baserunners as Helsley warmed up. He said tried to ignore the noise of possibly setting the club record and wasn’t entirely successful. (“I’m human, too,†he said.) Relievers John King, Andrew Kittredge, and Matthew Liberatore shepherded the lead to Helsley, but it took cooperation from the offense to make a save opportunity, too.
The lineup needed not to score in the top of the ninth.
“You’re hoping our hitters are just good teammates,†Marmol said, joking. “Let’s keep this at 3 and let him do his thing.â€
Helsley did so much of what he’s done 48 times before. He got a popup on his slider. He allowed a one-out single. And then struck out the next two batters on six pitches. He bent a slider past Helio Ramos for the second out of the ninth, and he dropped a curve on Wade to close the game.
The winning record does not hide the Cardinals’ absence from the playoff race, but Helsley’s record-setting season does offer a hint how the Cardinals can get back into the playoff picture. He’s either their most valuable trade piece this winter if they lean into rebuilding, or he’s the starting point for how the Cardinals improve their roster. With him in this kind of role and healthy, he shortens games, leaving opponents only eight innings to score.
To become a contender, a surefire finisher is a good place to start.
But not as valuable if a team just idles.
“He was lights-out,†Marmol said. “If you get to the ninth, you’re winning the ballgame. … It’s one of those things when you know you’re navigating the game trying to bridge it to the guy who ends it almost every single time. It’s nice to have.â€