Saved!

Matt Albers got a pretty cheap win for the Red Sox last night. After Jon Lester no-hit the Blue Jays and collected five strikeouts in four innings, he came out with a strained lat. Albers took credit for the win by pitching just two innings of one-hit ball. 

Franklin Morales pitched an uneventful seventh and Daniel Bard worked around a single in the eighth. No statistical credit for them. Then, with a 3-0 lead, Jonathan Papelbon nailed down his 18th save in 19 tries.

At least that's what the record says. In fact, Papelbon recorded two outs before allowing a single, a home run, a walk and two more singles. If you're wondering how eight total bases didn't tie the game, let's talk about Darnell McDonald and Jason Varitek.

With Edwin Encarnacion on second and JP Arencibia on first, Papelbon served up a single to left by Blue Jay shortstop John McDonald. McDonald's Red Sock namesake fired a beebee to the plate, which was being blocked by Tek's left leg. Varitek tagged Encarnacion to end the game. Papelbon got credit for that out and for "saving" the game.

In order to "earn" that save, here is the closer's body of work: three outs, one of which resulted from a great defensive play, two runs, four hits and a walk. The Blue Jays batted .667/.714/.833 against him.

This is why sabermetricians don't care about saves. It's why managing to the stat makes utterly no sense. (Actually, it makes utterly no sense to manage to any statistic.) It's why, baseball Neanderthals who claim to dismiss statistics actually don't; they just rely on the wrong ones.

But it's all right. Eventually, they'll all be saved.

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