Raidel Martínez pitched the ninth inning at the Tokyo Dome on Sunday, retired the Tokyo Yakult Swallows in order and closed out a 3–2 Yomiuri Giants win. It was his 40th save of 2026 and the 252nd of his career in Japan, and it put the Pinar del Río right-hander into a record that only two pitchers in Nippon Professional Baseball history have held.
Three consecutive seasons of 40 or more saves is the longest run NPB has ever recorded. Hitoki Iwase managed it for the Chunichi Dragons in 2005–07. Dennis Sarfate managed it for the SoftBank Hawks in 2015–17. Nobody had matched it in the nine years since. Martínez matched it on Sunday, and he did it across two clubs.
The save
The Giants came from behind to win the 23rd meeting of the season between the two clubs, taking the season series to 13–10 in their favour and moving into provisional first place in the Central League with a third straight win. Akito Tanaka worked the eighth; Martínez, the fifth pitcher used, worked the ninth and needed three batters.
His 2026 line, from NPB’s official register: 54 games, 5–4, 40 saves, a 1.26 earned run average across 50 innings, 55 strikeouts and 11 walks.
What the record is, and what it is not
The Spanish-language coverage that reached Cuban readers on Sunday called Martínez the third pitcher to string together three 40-save seasons and left it there. That is correct as far as it goes, but two different records are tangled together in it, and they are worth separating.
The first is the streak. Three consecutive 40-save seasons is the NPB record, and it is a record Martínez has tied, not broken. Iwase went 46–40–43 from 2005 to 2007. Sarfate went 41–43–54 from 2015 to 2017. Martínez has gone 43–46–40 from 2024 to 2026 — the first of those three with Chunichi, the last two with Yomiuri.
The second is the plain count of 40-save seasons, streak or no streak. There Iwase stands alone with five: 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009 and 2010. Martínez’s three tie him with Sarfate for second. He is also the first pitcher to record a 40-save season twice for the Giants.
Level with the Daimajin
Save number 252 moved Martínez alongside Kazuhiro Sasaki — the closer Japan called Daimajin, and the one Seattle Mariners fans remember from the early 2000s — in a tie for third on NPB’s all-time list.
| Rank | Pitcher | NPB career saves |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Hitoki Iwase | 407 |
| 2 | Shingo Takatsu | 286 |
| T3 | Kazuhiro Sasaki | 252 |
| T3 | Raidel Martínez | 252 |
| T5 | Yoshihisa Hirano | 250 |
| T5 | Naoya Masuda | 250 |
| 7 | Yasuaki Yamasaki | 246 |
| 8 | Kyuji Fujikawa | 243 |
| 9 | Yuki Matsui | 236 |
| 10 | Dennis Sarfate | 234 |
A fourth saves title, and a ballpark record
The Central League saves title was already his before Sunday: the field ran out of games to catch him earlier in the month. It is his fourth, and his third in a row.
Sunday added a second, quieter mark. The 53rd save of his career at the Tokyo Dome moved him past Marc Kroon, who saved 52 games in that ballpark across spells with Yokohama and Yomiuri, and gave Martínez the venue record outright.
Why this is a Cuban story
Ten days earlier, on 10 September, Martínez became the first foreign pitcher in NPB history to reach 250 saves, which is the threshold for the Meikyūkai, Japan’s Golden Players Club. We covered that save here, and noted at the time that two numbers were still in reach before October: Sasaki’s 252, and a fourth Central League saves title. Both are now his.
He is one of two Cuban pitchers in Japan’s top flight. The other, Liván Moinelo, has spent 2026 turning himself into a starter for the SoftBank Hawks — five wins since August at a 0.87 earned run average. Both of them, in the same league, in the same season, is the strongest pair of Cuban arms anywhere outside the major leagues, and it goes almost entirely unreported in English.
There is a Cuban-league footnote too. On 15 September, Pinar del Río named both Martínez and Moinelo to its 32-man roster for the 65th Serie Nacional, which opens on 4 October — neither of them will be there, and in Cuba that is not a contradiction.
What is left
Second place on the all-time list is a long way off — Shingo Takatsu’s 286 is another 34 saves, most of a full season at Martínez’s current rate. Third place, though, is now his to take outright with a single save, and the Giants have games left. Aroldis Chapman remains the only Cuban-born pitcher with 400 saves in the majors; he reached that mark on 6 September. Martínez is building the Japanese version of the same career, at 29.
Sources
- Nippon Professional Baseball, official 2026 Yomiuri Giants pitching register — 2026 line, read 21 September 2026.
- Nippon Professional Baseball, official 2026 schedule and results — Yomiuri 3–2 Tokyo Yakult, Tokyo Dome, 20 September 2026.
- Sankei Sports data box, 20 September 2026 — season-by-season totals for Martínez, Iwase and Sarfate; all-time ranking; Tokyo Dome record and Kroon’s split of 52.
- Nikkan Sports data note, 20 September 2026 — three consecutive 40-save seasons as the shared NPB record; first Giants pitcher with two 40-save seasons.
- Sports Hochi, 20 September 2026 — NPB all-time career saves list; Sasaki’s 381 across Japan and the United States.
- Sports Hochi and Nikkan Sports, September 2026 — Central League saves title clinched, third in a row and fourth overall.
- Chunichi Sports, September 2026 — Tokyo Dome saves record tied at 52.
- CiberCuba, 20 September 2026 — Cuban coverage of the milestone.
Save totals, rankings and season-by-season figures are as recorded by NPB’s official register and the Japanese data desks that track it. Where the Spanish-language coverage and the Japanese record books differ on how the record is framed, we have followed the Japanese record books.
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