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For twelve seasons, Kirby Yates had one job. Somebody else started the game. Somebody else threw the first pitch and heard the crowd’s big cheer. Then, late in the game, when the score was close and everyone was nervous, the phone rang in the bullpen and Yates jogged in to finish it.
He did that 517 times.
On Saturday, September 26, 2026, in Detroit, he walked out to the mound at the very start of a game for the first time in his big-league career. He got five outs. Then he walked off, shook hands with his teammates and the umpire, and told reporters it was over. Kirby Yates retires at 39, and the first start of his career was also his last game.
That alone would make a nice story. But the most interesting part is how that start happened. Nobody handed it to him. He asked.
Who Is Kirby Yates? A Quick Guide If Baseball Isn’t Your Sport
In baseball, the “starting pitcher” begins the game and usually pitches for a long time. Relief pitchers wait in a side area called the bullpen. They come in later, often for just one inning, often when the game is on the line. The “closer” is the reliever trusted with the very last outs. A “save” is what a closer earns for protecting a lead to the end.
Yates was a finisher. Here is his path, in short:
- No team drafted him out of junior college in Arizona. He signed with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2009 anyway.
- He did not reach the major leagues until June 2014, when he was 27. That is late.
- He pitched for eight different teams: the Rays, Yankees, Angels, Padres, Braves, Rangers, Dodgers and, at the very end, the Pirates.
- In 2019 he led all of Major League Baseball with 41 saves and was named an All-Star. He was an All-Star again in 2024.
- He won a World Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2025.
- He finished with 101 career saves and 672 strikeouts.
And there is one line that most summaries skip. He had Tommy John surgery, a major elbow rebuild that pitchers dread, twice. The first was in college. The second came in spring training of 2021, right after he signed a new contract with the Toronto Blue Jays. He never threw a single pitch for Toronto. There is a ninth team on his résumé that he never got to play for at all. (If you’ve never heard of the surgery, we wrote about the man behind Tommy John surgery and the careers it keeps saving.)
So this is not a story about a star. It is a story about a man who kept getting told “not yet,” “not you” and “not now,” and kept showing up to do the hard, late, unglamorous work anyway.
How Kirby Yates Got His First Career Start
The game was already special. It was Justin Verlander’s farewell, the final start for one of the greatest pitchers of his generation, back in Detroit where his career began. (We wrote about Verlander’s question, “What are we saving my arm for?” the day before.)
Pittsburgh planned a “bullpen game” that day. That means no normal starter. Instead, a string of relievers each pitch an inning or two. Someone still has to go first. That pitcher is called the “opener.”
Yates wanted to be the opener. He said he had put the idea in manager Don Kelly’s head a few days earlier, and the two went back and forth about it. Some reports say he first brought it up half as a joke. Then, the day before the game, Kelly told him yes.
Here is the detail that stopped me. Before the game, Yates said this:
“I’ve been trying to open for a while. Teams haven’t allowed me to do it.”
Think about that. For years, he had quietly wanted to start one game. Just one. And for years, the answer was no. He was too valuable in his usual role. He was the guy you saved for the end.
When Kelly finally said yes, Yates laughed and said he would love to. Then, in his own words, he got “pretty nervous pretty quickly.” A 39-year-old man with a World Series ring and more than 500 games behind him, nervous like a rookie. “Haven’t had these feelings in a long time,” he said. “It’s cool. It’s fun.”
What Happened in Kirby Yates’ Final Game
He gave up two singles right away. Then he got a ground ball that turned into a double play, two outs on one pitch, and the danger was gone. He came back out for the second inning. He got a groundout. Then he struck out Detroit’s catcher, Dillon Dingler. That was strikeout number 672. It was his last.
He was replaced after five outs. The Pirates went on to lose, 4-3, on a hit in the Tigers’ final at-bat. By then, the day was already about two goodbyes, not the score.
Something else happened that day that almost never happens. Both starting pitchers, Verlander and Yates, were making their final appearance after long careers. According to the Associated Press, reporting on Yates’ final game, that had only happened twice before in the regular season among pitchers with twelve or more seasons: once in 1916, when the Hall of Famers Christy Mathewson and Mordecai Brown faced each other, and once in 1945. Kirby Yates, the undrafted reliever, is now in that small list next to two of the most famous names in the game’s early history.
He did not try to steal the spotlight. Before the game, asked about pitching against Verlander, he said: “It’s a guy I respect a lot and have admired for many, many years. It’s his day.”
After the game, he confirmed he was done. “I don’t have anything left,” he said. He had been “running on fumes” for a while.
What It Means to Be Known Only for Your Role
Most of us aren’t pitchers. But plenty of us know what it feels like to be the reliever.
You’re the one who gets called when something is already going wrong. The one who covers the shift, fixes the mess, finishes the project someone else started, looks after the parent, stays late. You’re good at it. That’s exactly the problem. Because you are so useful in that role, nobody thinks to ask whether you might want something else. Sometimes you stop asking too.
If you have been running on fumes for a while, it’s worth taking five honest minutes with our free Am I Burned Out at Work? check. It’s a quiet way to see where you really are.
Here is what Yates’ story gently suggests. Being the finisher is honorable work, and it matters. But you are allowed to be more than your function. And sometimes the door you’ve wanted for years opens not because someone finally notices you, but because you finally say it out loud: I would love to do that. Just once.
Yates didn’t demand the spotlight. He even said the day belonged to someone else. He simply asked. And the answer, at last, was yes.
There’s a very old saying, much older than baseball, that the last will be first. People have held onto it for two thousand years because it names something we hope is true about the world: that the ones who spent their lives at the back of the line, doing the late, quiet work while someone else took the first bow, are not forgotten. That somewhere, someone has been keeping track of all 517 of those jogs in from the bullpen. Saturday in Detroit looked a lot like that saying, played out on a pitcher’s mound.
A Few Small Ways to Try This
- Name one “role” people count on you for. Then name one thing you’d love to do that has nothing to do with it.
- Ask for one small thing you’ve wanted for a long time. Say it plainly, even half as a joke, like Yates did.
- Think of a “reliever” in your own life, the person who always covers and finishes. Give them a turn to go first this week.
Every career ends. Most end quietly, and many end with a hard question about who you are once the job is gone. Kirby Yates got to end his in the one spot he’d always wanted to stand, at the start. When the time came, he said he’d given the game everything he had, and that it had given him back more than he could ever thank it for. Not a bad way to walk off the mound.
One Thing Worth Talking About
Kirby Yates spent twelve years finishing other pitchers’ games and waited until his last day to start one. Do you think people who do the “late, quiet work” get enough credit, at work, at home, or anywhere? Tell us in the comments.
Share This
- 517 games finishing what others started. One start, on his last day, because he finally asked. Kirby Yates’ goodbye is my favorite story this week. bgodinspired.com
- “I’ve been trying to open for a while. Teams haven’t allowed me to do it.” – Kirby Yates, before his first and last start. Sometimes you have to say what you want out loud. bgodinspired.com
- If you’re the “reliever” in your family or job, the one who always covers and finishes, this one’s for you. bgodinspired.com
Questions About Kirby Yates’ Retirement
Why did Kirby Yates retire?
Kirby Yates retired on September 26, 2026, at age 39, after twelve Major League Baseball seasons. After his final game for the Pittsburgh Pirates, he told reporters he didn’t have anything left and had been “running on fumes” for a while. He had two Tommy John elbow surgeries during his career.
What was Kirby Yates’ last game?
Kirby Yates’ last game was on September 26, 2026, for the Pittsburgh Pirates against the Detroit Tigers at Comerica Park in Detroit. It was the first start of his big-league career, after 517 relief appearances. He recorded five outs, including a strikeout of Dillon Dingler, and the Pirates lost 4-3.
How did Kirby Yates get to start his final game?
The Pittsburgh Pirates had planned a bullpen game on September 26, 2026, and Kirby Yates suggested to manager Don Kelly that he be the opener. Yates said he had been trying to open games for a while but teams had not allowed it. Kelly agreed, giving Yates the first start of his career in his final appearance.
What teams did Kirby Yates play for?
Kirby Yates pitched for eight Major League Baseball teams: the Tampa Bay Rays, New York Yankees, Los Angeles Angels, San Diego Padres, Atlanta Braves, Texas Rangers, Los Angeles Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates. He also signed with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2021 but never pitched for them because he needed a second Tommy John surgery.
What were Kirby Yates’ career highlights?
Kirby Yates went undrafted out of junior college, signed with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2009, and debuted in the major leagues in 2014 at age 27. He led Major League Baseball with 41 saves in 2019, was an All-Star in 2019 and 2024, won the 2025 World Series with the Los Angeles Dodgers, and finished with 101 saves and 672 strikeouts.
