David Robertson first saw Mariano Rivera up close when he joined the New York Yankees in 2008. The experience made a big impact on him.
“I learned a lot from watching him,” Robertson said. “He’s an incredible competitor, and he was really good.”
Rivera, who holds the major league record with 652 saves from his 19 seasons with New York, was unanimously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2019.
Robertson is still performing well with Texas and passed Rivera in relief strikeouts when he struck out Andrew Benintendi during the Rangers’ 3-1 win over the Chicago White Sox on Wednesday. Robertson also struck out Andrew Vaughn while pitching a perfect eighth inning.
The 39-year-old Robertson now has 1,137 relief strikeouts, which is two more than Rivera and ranks 12th in major league history. Next on the list is Francisco Rodríguez with 1,142.
Robertson and Rivera both contributed to New York’s World Series win in 2009. They were in the same Yankees bullpen for Robertson’s first six seasons.
Robertson mentioned that he didn’t know much about Rivera while growing up in Alabama.
“We had the Braves on and you’d see the Cubs on WGN, and that was about all the baseball I really watched, which wasn’t much,” Robertson said.
“But when I came to the Yankees and learned about the tradition and everything that he had been through, and then you see his postseason stats come up, and I started to realize how great of a career he had. Never would I have thought that I would be in any category close to him.”
