The people who saw Lee Smith knew that the reason that he was only called on to get saves was because that’s where he excelled the most. He appeared in 245 games in his tenure for the St. Louis Cardinals, and 209 of those times, he was called on to finish out a game.
He had the numbers to back that conviction up. He finished with 160 saves in his Cardinals career, and a solid 2.90 ERA, 2.89 FIP, and 1.15 WHIP to go with it. While the first eight of those years were spent as a Chicago Cub, he only recorded 20 more saves as at Cub than he did with the St.