CHICAGO (AP) — David Robertson got a firsthand look at Mariano Rivera when he broke into the majors with the New York Yankees in 2008.
The experience left quite an impression.
“I learned a lot from watching him,” Robertson said. “He’s an incredible competitor, and he was really good.”
Rivera, who had a major league-record 652 saves in 19 seasons with New York, was a unanimous selection when he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019.
Robertson is still going strong with Texas, and he passed his former teammate in relief strikeouts when he fanned Andrew Benintendi during the Rangers’ 3-1 victory over the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday. Robertson also struck out Andrew Vaughn while working a perfect eighth inning.
The 39-year-old Robertson has 1,137 relief strikeouts, two more than Rivera and good for 12th in major league history. Next up is Francisco Rodríguez with 1,142.
Robertson and Rivera helped New York win the World Series in 2009. They were part of the same bullpen with the Yankees for Robertson’s first six seasons in the majors.
Robertson said he didn’t know much about Rivera while growing up in Alabama.
“We had the Braves on and you’d see the Cubs on WGN, and that was about all the baseball I really watched, which wasn’t much,” Robertson said.
“But when I came to the Yankees and learned about the tradition and everything that he had been through, and then you see his postseason stats come up, and I started to realize how great of a career he had. Never would I have thought that I would be in any category close to him.”
Robertson is 3-3 with a 3.00 ERA and two saves in his 16th big league season. Texas is 43-10 in his 53 appearances.
Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said he spoke with the team about Robertson’s accomplishment after the victory.
“Really amazing,” Bochy said. “His career … we looked at, over 9,800 relievers ever in the game, I think more than that, and here he is, 12th on the all-time list. He just passed (Trevor) Hoffman. He just passed Rivera, so that puts him in a class as one of the best relievers in the game.”
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