Despite a few tense moments in the ninth inning Sunday afternoon at Fenway Park, with Baltimore third baseman Melvin Mora at the plate and the tying run just 90 feet away at third base, Boston closer Jonathan Papelbon not only notched his 28th save of the season on Sunday for the Red Sox in 2008 but also recorded save number 100 of his career, only the third player in franchise history to reach that mark. The All-Star closer joins the company of two Red Sox legends, former reliever Dick Radatz, who notched 104 over four-plus years in Boston, and Bob Stanley, who recorded 132 over 13 seasons with the club. Coupled with the team’s success over the past few seasons, Papelbon needed just 176 appearances to reach the century mark, while Radatz needed 268 games and Stanley, who leads the club with 637 career appearances, needed 396.

In fairness, Stanley’s extensive career with Boston included time as a starter, including 30 starts in 1979 and 17 in 1980 in 92 total appearances. Radatz, meanwhile, was not considered a specialist like Papelbon; he often pitched three innings to close games and the save was not an official statistic until 1969, the same year that his career ended. As a comparison, in 286 career appearances with the Red Sox, all as a reliever, Radatz averaged just shy of two innings per game; in contrast, in three seasons as the club’s official closer, Papelbon has averaged one inning pitched per appearance.

Papelbon is already the only reliever in Red Sox history to record 30 or more saves in at least two seasons, having earned 35 in 2006 and 37 last season. At his current pace, he is set to make 68 appearances this season and notch 47 saves, which would give him one more than Tom Gordon recorded in 1998, the high-water mark for the franchise. At a minimum, should he pass the 40-save mark before the regular season ends, he would be just the fifth pitcher in team history to record that many in a single season, joining Gordon, Derek Lowe, Jeff Reardon, and Ugueth Urbina.