ST. LOUIS — As Ryan Helsley begins the final week of the Cardinals’ season needing two saves to break the franchise record for the most saves in a season, one fan will be watching from his home in Houston, cheering for Helsley.
For Trevor Rosenthal, who has had the record of 48 saves since 2015, watching Helsley close in on the record has brought back a lot of fond memories.
“It’s been fun to watch what he’s doing,” Rosenthal said on Monday in a telephone conversation. “I hope he gets to 50.”
Rosenthal broke the record of 47 saves set by Lee Smith in 1991 and equaled by Jason Isringhausen in 2004. His record-breaking save came in the 157th game of the season, but he didn’t have a chance to add to his total as the Cardinals lost four of their last five games, and the only win came in an 11-1 blowout.
“It’s not easy to do because there are so many variables that are outside of your control,” Rosenthal said. “The 48 number was great but the real number I think any closer would want is 50 saves. That would have been the icing on the cake for sure. I felt it was a little short of what I had hoped for.
“There’s really a couple of things the accolade of saves represents. It represents your ability to be durable and consistent with your performance but also it’s a reflection of the team as well. There are other guys in the bullpen getting you the ball in the ninth and defense making plays behind you.”
One difference between Rosenthal’s season and what Helsley has accomplished is the team’s performance. When Rosenthal was setting the record, the Cardinals were on the way to 100 wins and a division championship.
With the current Cardinals hovering around the .500 mark, Helsley has either saved or won almost 70 percent of the team’s victories.
“That’s the beautiful thing about the game is it’s never a one-man show,” Rosenthal said. “It takes a collective group. But it’s a big testament to Ryan and his ability to figure out the workload and make himself available and take the ball when they call on him.”
Helsley’s first chance to get the record-tying save could come on Tuesday night, when the Cardinals begin a three-game series in Colorado.
“It would have been fun if I could be there but it’s kind of hard to predict,” Rosenthal said. “You’d almost have to go to every single game.”
But Rosenthal will be watching and he will remember the night in Pittsburgh when he set the record, passing Smith and Isringhausen.
“When it happened I felt the honor that it represented because of the names it was associated with,” he said. “As time has gone on I’ve become more aware of how special that achievement was. When you are in the moment, playing every day, some of those things just seem to be kind of normal.
“That was just what I did; ‘everybody does this’ … At the time those teams were winning, and it just seemed like part of the equation. We were in the postseason, winning 100 games, it just seemed like that was what you do.
“I was not completely aware of the record. I was just trying to do the best I could and it worked out that way.”
Rosenthal, who had earned 45 saves the previous season, intends to reach out to Helsley in the coming days to offer his encouragement and support in his attempt to break the record.
“It would be great to have that record for as long a time as possible,” Rosenthal said, “but my perspective is that if the only thing that Trevor Rosenthal is ever known for is the single-season saves record then I did something wrong with the time I had in my life. That was one year out of hopefully a multi-decade lifetime.”
What Rosenthal wants to tell Helsley is how happy he will be to see him break the record.
“To see somebody like Ryan knocking on the door it’s like ‘Hey man, go do it. This is what it’s all about. Make the most of every opportunity.’ I’m super happy to see somebody else getting the experience that I had because I know how much fun it was.”
What Rosenthal didn’t know when he was setting the record was that the 2015 season would be the last fully-healthy season in his career. Starting in 2016, injuries limited his performance over the next several years. Rosenhal, now 34, has had Tommy John surgery twice as well as a procedure on his hip and thoracic outlet surgery.
“It goes by a lot quicker than you think, but I always knew it wasn’t going to last forever,” Rosenthal said. “If I could have had a few more healthy years that would have been a lot of fun.”
Rosenthal is now busy with his kid’s activities and a little more than a year ago started a podcast “The Gameplan Show,” which deals primarily with youth sports.
“We give advice and have conversations about how parents and coaches can maximize the opportunities in youth spots to develop essential life skills like character, discipline, being a good teammate, all of those types of things,” he said.
The podcast is available on all regular podcast platforms.
While Rosenthal is having fun with the podcast and his kids, watching Helsley has brought back thoughts of another fun time in his life.
“Watching him do what he’s doing, after the experiences that I’ve had in the game, I just have lot of respect because I know it’s hard, even though he makes it look so easy,” Rosenthal said.
“I want to encourage him to keep going and to keep his foot on the gas because you never know when you will have this kind of opportunity again, so you’ve got to make the most of it.”
Follow Rob Rains on Twitter @RobRains
