Finnegan savoring every MLB-leading save for winning team

Kyle Finnegan had pitched in 241 big league games before taking the mound Tuesday night at Nationals Park. Appearance No. 242 carried more weight than usual.

“This one, for whatever reason, felt a little more meaningful,” the right-hander said afterward. “It’s been a while since we’ve been over .500. We’ve been putting in all the work behind the scenes, and to see it starting to come to fruition has been exciting. And to do it against Baltimore in this series is special.”

Finnegan’s 62nd career save was his first as a member of a Nationals team with a winning record. That fact wasn’t lost on the 32-year-old, who has become one of the organization’s longest-tenured pitchers but not long enough to have experienced the good old days when meaningful baseball was played on a nightly basis on South Capitol Street.

So Tuesday’s 3-0 victory over the Orioles, with Finnegan recording the final three outs and then receiving high-fives from teammates as pink LED lights glowed above and a crowd of nearly 30,000 roared with approval, was arguably the biggest game he’s ever pitched.

One night later, he found himself right back in the spotlight, posting another zero in the top of the 10th to give his teammates a chance to win in the bottom of the inning. They couldn’t pull that one off, ultimately losing 7-6 in the 12th, but it was through no fault of their closer.

Make that one of baseball’s best closers so far in 2024.

As the Nats prepare to open a weekend series in Boston, Finnegan sits atop the major league leaderboard with 12 saves (tied with the Padres’ Robert Suárez). He sports a 1.65 ERA and 0.857 WHIP. And he’s on the best sustained stretch of his career.

On March 31 in Cincinnati, in the season’s third game, Finnegan blew a two-run lead in the bottom of the ninth, serving up a pair of crushing home runs. He hasn’t surrendered another earned run since.

On April 12 in Oakland, Finnegan took the loss after giving up a game-winning single that allowed the automatic runner on second to score. He hasn’t surrendered another hit since.

That’s right: Finnegan has now pitched 11 consecutive scoreless, hitless innings. Only three of the 34 batters he’s faced in that time have successfully reached base, all via walk. He has thrown the equivalent of a no-hitter, and then two more innings in pursuit of another one.

“He’s been awesome,” manager Davey Martinez said. “Every year, he gets better and better. Last year, I think he learned a lot about himself and what he can do as a closer. This year, he’s taking on ownership of that role and has done really, really well.”

It’s helpful to remember how Finnegan came to be a National in the first place. Drafted by the Athletics as a starter way back in 2013, he struggled in the lower minor leagues as a starter, then began having success after he was converted to a reliever in 2016. But when the 2019 season concluded, he remained at Triple-A, having never been added to the A’s 40-man roster, giving him the right to become a free agent.

The Nationals liked what they saw, so much so they didn’t offer Finnegan a minor league contract as would be standard procedure in such a case. They offered him a major league deal, which he gladly accepted. He hasn’t been back to Triple-A since, rising up the Nats’ bullpen depth chart from middle reliever to setup man to closer.

“When I first met him, I saw a guy that had good stuff that didn’t really know who he was, didn’t have an identity,” Martinez said. “Just by knowing him, by talking to him, by putting him into situations where I thought he could succeed, it was more or less about building confidence with him. Making him understand: ‘Hey, you can pitch here. Your stuff is that good.’

“And then the rest was up to him. He went out there and showed me every day he can do this job. And he’s getting better at it.”

Though he finished with 28 saves in 36 opportunities last season, Finnegan did so via a 1-2-3 final inning only 10 times. He developed a reputation for getting himself into – and then out of – jams, which is nice but also leads to far too many harrowing ninth innings.

This year, there’s been far less drama. Seven of Finnegan’s 12 saves have featured 1-2-3 innings. Only once has he needed to throw more than 20 pitches in an inning. Six times he’s done it on 10 or fewer pitches.

“The focus for him is getting that first guy out,” Martinez said. “He says he really wants to get that first guy out. … I think that’s helped him out tremendously.”

Four times so far he’s closed out one-run wins, none better than the Nationals’ 1-0 shutout of the Rangers last week in which he struck out the side.

“I think getting the first guy out is huge in those situations,” he said. “Kind of kill the momentum quickly for them. Because you always know they’re one swing away in a one-run game. Just try to get that first out, and you feel some momentum move to our side.”

Finnegan hasn’t done a lot of tinkering during his career. He’s thrown his upper-90s fastball nearly 70 percent of the time in each of his five big league seasons, with his splitter his primary second pitch.

But this year he did make one change. Dissatisfied with the slider he had always thrown and was crushed to the tune of a .417 batting average and .833 slugging percentage last season, he showed up this spring with a new breaking ball: a sweeper. That pitch, which comes in about 5 mph slower than the slider did, with more horizontal break, has been a success so far in limited use: He’s thrown it 13 times, has yet to give up a hit on it and has recorded three strikeouts.

“The sweeper is still a work in progress. Some good, some bad,” he said last week after striking out Texas’ Marcus Semien with it. “I think the fact I haven’t thrown it a lot is maybe advantageous to me. Maybe they’re not expecting it or preparing for it. To be able to execute a really good one tonight was big.”

There’s a long way to go, and surely Finnegan will experience a hiccup at some point before season’s end. Probably multiple hiccups. But at the moment, he’s on the top of the world, pitching like one of the best closers in the sport.

And for the first time, doing it in meaningful situations for a team that believes it’s ready to win.

“There’s nothing like winning a Major League Baseball game,” he said after Tuesday’s save. “It’s hard to do. And against one of the best teams in the league, we’re very happy with that.”