In
baseball, a
save (abbreviated
SV or
S) is credited to a
pitcher who
finishes a game for the winning team under certain prescribed circumstances, described below. The number of saves, or percentage of save opportunities successfully converted, is an oft-cited statistic of
relief pitchers, particularly those in the
closer role. It became an official
Major League Baseball (MLB) statistic in .
Mariano Rivera is MLB's all-time leader in regular season saves with 652.