Robertson reaching elite company for K's by a reliever

This story was excerpted from Kennedi Landry’s Rangers Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

CLEVELAND -- When David Robertson tied Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman for No. 13 on MLB’s all-time relief strikeout leaderboard, he was almost unfazed by it.

“I’m chasing down the next guy,” Robertson said on Friday, ahead of the Rangers’ series opener against the Guardians. “That next guy is the one I’m after.”

The next guy just happened to be another Hall of Famer and a former Yankees teammate of Robertson’s: Mariano Rivera. He caught up to Rivera pretty quickly too, notching two strikeouts in a scoreless eighth inning in the Rangers’ 5-3 win, which brought him to 1,135 K's in relief in his 16-year big league career.

Robertson also has one strikeout as an opener, in the lone start of his career in 2021 with the Rays.

“It’s pretty cool,” Robertson said. “Yeah, it’s pretty cool. I honestly didn't think I'd be here. I didn't think I'd be playing after years ago. So I feel like getting to 1,000 strikeouts was a big deal for me last year, and then just kind of kept piling them on and trying to repeat what I was doing at age 27 now at age 39, so ... it's been good.”

But passing Rivera was maybe even cooler for Robertson.

“For six years, I set him up for 500 [strikeouts], 600 too,” Robertson joked. “It was me throwing all those innings before him. I set up the Hall of Fame career, man. It was me who got him in there. He just had to get a few outs at the end. No, no, it's him. Listen, it was obviously an incredible career for him. But, I mean, this is like the only stat I can catch him in. Well, walks. I’m sure I beat him in that one already.”

Of his 1,136 strikeouts, Robertson has punched out 587 batters. Of those batters, he’s struck out Chris Davis the most (11 times), with Adam Jones falling right behind Davis with 10 strikeouts. Robertson has not struck out anybody else more than eight times.

When asked about his favorite strikeout, Robertson instead began listing guys he couldn’t strike out.

“I don't know how many times I faced [Dustin] Pedroia, but I never struck him out," Robertson said. "Jim Thome and those kinda guys [were tough too]."

Robertson actually struck Pedroia out three times in 26 plate appearances, while he got Thome once in three plate appearances.

“I faced Ken Griffey Jr. at Old Yankee Stadium and I should've gotten him out, but I was scared to death,” Robertson joked, while shaking. “He took that beautiful swing and hit it off the end of the bat right to me. It was like a soft knuckleball, and I was panicking like a frightened child. I knocked it down and he beat it out for a single.”

It’s amazing that a guy like Robertson has made it this far in his career. A 17th-round pick in 2006 by the Yankees out of the University of Alabama, Robertson even spent a year and a half out of Major League Baseball recovering from Tommy John surgery in 2020-21.

Robertson was a 2009 World Series champion with New York, was an All-Star in '11, won an Olympic silver medal (Tokyo 2020) and now has a place in history among some of the best pitchers in all of baseball.

“It is amazing,” said manager Bruce Bochy. “When you look at David, at 39 and how he's throwing the ball, how he's still competing to be in that area with, with one of greatest closers of all time, just tells you that he's going to go down as one of the better high-leverage guys at pitching the game.

“With his longevity and how well he's performed, I'm impressed by him and what he can still do, and the demand he has and stuff that he has. It doesn't look like he's slowing down either. He just bounces around like he's 20 years old. He's been our fireman.”