I was just looking at Brad Lidge's numbers from this year, and man, I have to say it seems like a modern miracle that he managed to convert every single one of his save opportunities.

Obviously converting 100% of saves is very impressive and Lidge deserves to be commended for it.  But out of the top 20 saves leaders in MLB, only 2 of them walked more hitters than Lidge and he was tied for 11th in WHIP (50 hits, 35 walks in 69.1 innings).

His WHIP was 1.23.  Now, that's a fairly good number if you're a starter, but a closer?  I'll compare him to the leading cause of myocardial infarctions in area codes 314 and 636, Izzy.  The only times Izzy had WHIPs higher than that as a Cardinal were, you guessed them:  2006 (1.46 WHIP, 10 blown saves in 59 games) and 2008 (1.64 WHIP, 7 blown saves in 42 games).

Now those WHIPs were fairly higher than Lidge's was this year.  However, all I'm saying is that if you're consistently allowing 1-2 baserunners per appearance, it seems almost impossible to sustain a perfect save record.  Was he really "lights out" or just lucky?  The numbers don't lie though so I guess it doesn't matter.

It's a shame that Mariano Rivera's season got lost in the shuffle because of all this.  He blew one save out of 40 (the nerve!) but walked only six in 70.2 innings.