The Save Rule, the Hold and the Win: Pitching Decisions Explained

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 12 min read

How scorers assign wins, losses and saves, what a hold and a blown save are, where the save came from, and why these decisions say less about a pitcher than the numbers suggest.

Every game in the major leagues ends with the scorer assigning a win to one pitcher and a loss to another, and in many games a third pitcher gets a save. These credits are the oldest way of describing what pitchers do, and they appear next to every name in a box score. They are also among the most misunderstood statistics in the sport, because they are not measures of how well a pitcher performed. They are bookkeeping entries governed by rules, and the rules have some surprising edges.

A starting pitcher can allow six runs and win. A reliever can strike out the side and take the loss. A closer can enter with a three-run lead, throw one clean inning and be credited with a save, while another closer faces the heart of the order in a one-run game in the eighth inning and gets nothing. Once you know the rules, these outcomes stop looking like quirks and start looking like predictable results of a system.

This article explains each decision in turn, using plain examples: the win, the loss, the no-decision, the save, and the two unofficial relatives, the hold and the blown save. It then tells the history of the save, which is younger than most fans assume, and shows with the historical data how the way teams use pitchers changed the meaning of all these numbers. For the official wording, use the Official Baseball Rules published by Major League Baseball.

The win: who gets it and when

The rule for a win has two parts, one for starting pitchers and one for everyone else. A starting pitcher is credited with a win only if he pitches at least five innings in a game of six or more innings, his team is ahead when he leaves, and the team never gives up that lead afterward. In a shortened five-inning game the requirement is four innings. If a starter leaves the game with a lead but fewer than five innings, he cannot get the win however well he pitched.

When the starter does not qualify, the win goes to a reliever, and the scorer decides which one. The usual rule is simple: the winning pitcher is the pitcher who was in the game when his team took the lead for the last time. If the score is tied, 3-3, in the sixth inning and the home team scores a go-ahead run while reliever A is pitching, reliever A gets the win if the team holds the lead through the end of the game, no matter how many relievers follow him. The later relievers may get a save or a hold, but they cannot take the win.

There is an exception that stops the rule from producing silly outcomes. If the pitcher who would earn the win pitched very briefly and ineffectively, and a later reliever pitched well to protect the lead, the scorer may award the win to the better reliever instead. The scorer's judgment is part of the rule, and different scorers may weigh it differently.

Here is a worked example. The home team trails 4-3 when starter A leaves after six innings, having allowed four runs. Reliever B pitches the seventh, and in the bottom of the seventh his team scores twice to lead 5-4. B is the pitcher of record at that moment. Reliever C pitches the eighth and reliever D the ninth, and the team wins 5-4. B gets the win, C gets a hold if he entered with a lead of three runs or fewer, and D gets the save. The starter, A, gets a no-decision. The game does not need to have been dominated by B for him to be credited.

The loss and the no-decision

The loss is the mirror image of the win. The pitcher charged with the loss is the one responsible for the run that gave the opponent a lead it never gave up. That is the key idea: not the pitcher who allowed the most runs, and not the pitcher who threw the worst inning, but the pitcher responsible for the go-ahead run, with the usual rules on inherited runners assigning responsibility to the pitcher who allowed the runner to reach base.

Suppose a game is tied 2-2 when a reliever enters in the eighth with a runner on first. The runner scores, and the opponent leads 3-2 and holds it. The loss goes to the pitcher who allowed that runner to reach, because the run is charged to him, and not to the new reliever, who inherited the runner. Our guide to earned and unearned runs explains the related rules on who is responsible for a run, and the idea is similar.

A no-decision means that neither the starter nor any reliever earned the win or loss in a way that connects to him. A starter who leaves a tied game after seven innings gets a no-decision no matter how well he pitched, because his team had not taken the lead for good while he was in the game. In modern baseball, with starters rarely pitching deep into games, no-decisions are common, and a starter pulled after five innings of a tie has no claim on either credit.

Games must also be official for decisions to count. A game ended by rain is official after five innings, or four and a half if the home team is ahead, which is the subject of our guide to rain delays, suspended games and official games. An unofficial game wipes out every decision.

The save: three conditions, one requirement

The save is the newest of the three major credits, and its rule is more specific than most people realise. A pitcher is credited with a save when he meets all of these conditions:

1. He is the finishing pitcher in a game won by his team.
2. He is not the winning pitcher.
3. He qualifies under one of three tests: he enters the game with a lead of no more than three runs and pitches at least one inning; or he enters, whatever the score, with the potential tying run on base, at bat or on deck; or he pitches effectively for at least three innings.

Only one save can be awarded per game, and a pitcher cannot get a win and a save in the same game. Each of the three tests tells you something about the intent. The first is the standard ninth inning: a lead of three or fewer with a full inning to protect it. The second covers the dramatic entrances, the reliever who comes in with the bases loaded and a lead of four runs, because the batter at the plate is the potential tying run. The third covers the long relief appearance, in which a pitcher throws three innings to save the bullpen.

An example of each. A closer enters in the ninth inning of a 4-2 game and retires the side: that is a save under the first test. A reliever enters in the eighth inning of a 6-2 game with the bases loaded, so the batter at the plate is the potential tying run, and he gets out of the inning and finishes the ninth: that is a save under the second test, even though the lead was four. A long man enters a 7-2 game in the seventh and pitches the last three innings: that is a save under the third.

The test is about how the pitcher enters, not what happens afterward. A closer can enter a three-run game, allow two runs, and still get the save as long as the team wins and the lead is never lost. In that sense a save is a credit for finishing a close game, not a measure of whether the pitcher was dominant.

The hold and the blown save

Two other pitching entries are common in box scores and in fantasy leagues. Neither is in the official scoring rules; both are tracked by statisticians and the league as unofficial entries.

A hold is credited to a reliever who enters a game in a save situation, records at least one out, leaves without having surrendered the lead, and is not the finishing pitcher. In other words, it is the credit that goes to setup men who bridge the gap between the starter and the closer. A pitcher cannot get a hold in a game where he gets the win or the save, and the stat was created because setup relievers were doing important work with no statistical record of it.

A blown save is recorded when a reliever enters in a save situation and allows the tying run to score. A save situation is the same set of circumstances the save rule describes: a lead of three or fewer with an inning to protect, or the tying run on base, at bat or on deck. A reliever with a blown save may still earn the win, if his team comes back to take the lead while he is the pitcher of record. Fans call that a vulture win, though the phrase is not a technical term.

Fantasy players often use a statistic called save percentage, which is saves divided by save opportunities, meaning saves plus blown saves. A closer with 40 saves and 5 blown saves converted 40 of 45, or 88.9 percent. The measure is useful, but it ignores how hard the opportunities were, as the sections below show. On the site's fantasy section you can see how saves and holds feed into scoring formats.

Where the save came from

The save was invented by a sportswriter, not a rules committee. Jerome Holtzman, who covered baseball for Chicago newspapers, proposed the idea in 1959 and 1960 as a better measure of relief work than the existing numbers, which gave a relief pitcher credit only for wins and losses. Holtzman wanted a way to count the job of preserving a lead. He kept the tally himself in the early 1960s, and the statistic spread through the press.

Major League Baseball adopted the save as an official statistic in 1969. The definition was revised in the mid-1970s, and the current three-test form dates from that era. Because the statistic was added after the fact, saves for earlier seasons were calculated retroactively by researchers who went through old box scores. The historical record carries those retroactive totals, which is why you can look up saves for a pitcher from the 1950s. They are a reconstruction, not a number anyone kept at the time.

The save also created a new kind of player. Once saves were official, relievers could be ranked by them, and the ranking found its way into how teams valued and paid relief pitchers and how the ninth inning was assigned. It is easy to find a thread from the 1960 sportswriter's tally to a modern bullpen in which the closer is a defined role, usually for one inning.

How usage changed: the historical evidence

The historical record lets us see the change. In 1950, the National and American Leagues recorded 289 saves, which works out to 23.3 saves per 100 games, according to retroactive totals. By 1969, the first official year, the figure was 38.3. In 1990 it was 52.9, and in 2025 it was 49.4. During the same period, the complete game declined from about 40 percent of team games in 1950 to 0.6 percent in 2025, and the relief pitcher took over the innings the starter once finished.

Individual examples show the change in the workload. In 1952, Hoyt Wilhelm pitched in 71 games without a start, went 15-3 and threw about 159 innings, more innings than many modern starters throw. In 1977, Rich Gossage pitched in 72 games, all in relief, with 26 saves and a 1.62 ERA over about 133 innings. In 1990, Dennis Eckersley, who had moved to the ninth-inning role under manager Tony La Russa a few years earlier, saved 48 games in 63 appearances with a 0.61 ERA, in about 73 innings. In 1992 he saved 51 and won both the Cy Young Award and the Most Valuable Player award in the American League.

The one-inning closer is the product of this trend. Eckersley's innings were about half of Gossage's, and by the late 1990s and 2000s closers like Trevor Hoffman, who saved 53 games in 1998 over about 73 innings, and Mariano Rivera were used almost exclusively with a lead in the ninth. The single-season record in the database is 62 saves, set by Francisco Rodriguez in 2008, ahead of 57 by Bobby Thigpen in 1990 and by Edwin Diaz in 2018. Rivera leads the career list with 652, followed by Hoffman with 601, Lee Smith with 478 and Kenley Jansen with 476. For the hitter's view of the same years, read the profile of Craig Biggio, who played from 1988 to 2007 and faced many of those closers.

What the decisions leave out

The win is a measure of run support and timing at least as much as pitching skill. A pitcher with a fine ERA on a weak-hitting team can finish with a losing record, and a pitcher on a strong team can win 18 games with an ordinary ERA. The voters for the Cy Young Award have noticed. In 2010 Felix Hernandez won the American League award with a 13-12 record and a 2.27 ERA, and in 2018 Jacob deGrom won the National League award with a 10-9 record and a 1.70 ERA. Both seasons are in the historical record, and both are evidence that voters stopped treating the win as the first measure of a pitcher.

The save has a different problem. It rewards the situation, not the difficulty. A closer who enters with a three-run lead and the bottom of the order due has an easier job than a setup man who enters in the seventh with the tying run on second and the best hitter at bat, but only the closer may collect the save. Analysts have responded with the idea of leverage, a measure of how much a given moment affects the chance of winning, and with statistics that credit relievers for getting out of tough spots regardless of the inning. That work belongs in a longer treatment, but the basic point is that high-leverage innings occur earlier than the ninth.

None of this means the credits are useless. They are records of what happened, and they have value as a quick description of how a game was won. The point is to use each for what it measures: the win records that a pitcher was ahead when his team took the lead, the save records that a pitcher finished a close game, and the hold records that a setup man preserved a lead. None of them measures how good the pitcher was.

Common questions

Can a pitcher get a win and a save in the same game? No. A pitcher who earns the win cannot also be credited with a save in that game.

Can a starting pitcher get a save? In practice no. The tests describe a pitcher who enters the game, and a starter who finishes a game his team wins is the winning pitcher, so he gets a complete game and the win.

What if the game is tied when a reliever enters? He can still get the win, if his team takes the lead while he is pitching and keeps it. He cannot get a save for that entrance, because a save requires a lead or the tying run in position, and a winning pitcher cannot also be credited with a save.

Is a hold an official statistic? No. It is tracked by the league and by services, but it is not in the official scoring rules, and the definition used by different sites may vary in detail.

How many innings does a starter need for a win? Five in a game of six or more innings, with the lead intact when he leaves. The scorer awards the win to a reliever if the starter does not qualify.

Where to go next

For related rules, read about what counts as a no-hitter or perfect game, balls, strikes and the count and how scorers assign wild pitches and passed balls. If you are following a race for the postseason, magic numbers explained shows how wins and losses turn into clinching math. To check career totals for saves and wins, use the leaders pages.