This Date in Baseball - Mariano Rivera set the major league record with his 602nd save

Sept. 19

1925 — Ted Lyons lost his bid for a no-hitter when Bobby Veach singled with two outs in the ninth inning. The Chicago White Sox routed the Washington Senators 17-0.

1926 — The St. Louis Cardinals pounded the Philadelphia Phillies 23-3 in the first game of a doubleheader and beat them again in the nightcap, 10-2.

1949 — Ralph Kiner of the Pittsburgh Pirates became the first NL player to hit 50 home runs in two different seasons.

1955 — Ernie Banks of the Chicago Cubs set a major league record with his fifth grand slam of the season in a 12-inning, 6-5 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals.

1968 — Denny McLain won his 31st game, the most in the AL since Lefty Grove’s 31 in 1931. The Detroit Tigers beat the New York Yankees 6-2 while Mickey Mantle hit his 535th and next-to-last career homer.

1972 — Minnesota’s Cesar Tovar completed the cycle with a game-winning two-run home run in the bottom of the ninth inning to give the Twins a 5-3 victory over the Texas Rangers.

1973 — Frank Robinson hit his first home run in Arlington Stadium, as a member of the California Angels. It was the 32nd major league ballpark in which he had homered.

1984 — Pete Rose reached the 100-hit plateau for the 22nd consecutive year, an all-time record. He also tied the NL record for doubles with 725 as the Cincinnati Reds beat the Atlanta Braves 4-2.

1986 — Chicago’s Joe Crowley pitch a no-hitter to lead the White Sox to a 7-1 win over the California Angels.

1995 — San Diego’s Ken Caminiti became the first player in major league history to homer from both sides of the plate three times in a season as he went 4-for-4 with a career-high eight RBIs in a 15-4 win over Colorado.

1998 — Seattle’s Alex Rodriguez hit his 40th homer to become the third player in baseball history to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in the same season.

2001 — Roger Clemens became the first pitcher in major league history to go 20-1, pitching the New York Yankees to a 6-3 victory over the Chicago White Sox.

2001 — Albert Pujols set a National League rookie RBI record as St. Louis beat Milwaukee 8-2. Pujols drove in three runs to give him 120 RBIs, breaking the mark of 119 set by Wally Berger in 1930 for the Boston Braves.

2008 — Baseball’s instant replay system produced its first reversal when Tampa Bay’s Carlos Pena had a two-run double changed to a three-run homer during the fourth inning against Minnesota.

2008 — Greg Maddox pitches his 5,000th inning against the San Francisco Giants.

2011 — Mariano Rivera set the major league record with his 602nd save, closing out the New York Yankees’ 6-4 win over the Minnesota Twins.

2017 — A new MLB record for the most home runs in a season, 5,694, is set when Alex Gordon of the Kansas City Royals homers.

2024 — Shohei Ohtani kicks down the door of a brand new club of which he is the only member - the 50-50 club. Today, he gets his first six-hit game, and three of his hits are homers, giving him 51 on the season. He also steals two bases, also reaching (and going past) the 50 mark, all the while driving in ten runs in a 20 - 4 demolition of the Marlins by the Dodgers. Less than a month ago he became only the sixth member of the 40-40 club, but he now stands all alone in this new level of otherworldly excellence, and incidentally has set a new Dodgers single-season record for home runs (breaking Shawn Green’s mark).

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