Over his last 39 consecutive appearances on the mound, Houston reliever Ryan Pressly’s ERA has been an utterly absurd 0.00. It’s a streak that started back in Aug. 15, 2018 against the Rockies (eat shit, Ley), and officially reached MLB-record heights on Friday against the Boston Red Sox. The scoreless appearance was sealed thanks to some great acrobatics to get the final out of the eighth inning against Rafael Devers.
Up until that point, Craig Kimbrel had held the record for consecutive scoreless appearances with 38. He set that record with the Atlanta Braves in 2011—though, if you ask the Astros’ broadcast team, the record happened a whole decade earlier.
Kimbrel won Rookie of the Year that season (2011) and finished ninth in Cy Young Award voting.
As for what Pressly did on Friday, it’s not so much the fact that this was some impressive athleticism from a pitcher that made this play so great. The greatness came from the fact that he didn’t have to go that hard for the ball—there was no one on base and he already had secured two outs—but he did so anyway. I guess when you have a chance to be the sole record-holder in a sport that’s over a century old, doing it in style is really the only to go about it.