PITTSBURGH - Jose Mesa is proving there's still a place in major league baseball for the routine save.

In this season of the lost lead and the blown save, closing out games has become an oft-repeated adventure even for star relievers such as Octavio Dotel, Danny Kolb, Keith Foulke and Trevor Hoffman.

But while he pitches for a Pittsburgh Pirates team with decided flaws, Mesa has been nearly perfect.

Mesa turns 39 next week, an age when most relievers have long since become ex-closers, yet is a major-league leading 13-for-13 in save conversions. He has 23 in a row over the last two seasons, a span that has seen him convert 56 of 61 opportunities and become one of 19 relievers with 300 career saves.

Think that wouldn't look good to the Cubs, who have seen LaTroy Hawkins blow as many saves as he's converted since late last season? To the Rockies, who have three times as many blown saves (9) as they have saves (3)? To the entire AL, which had five blown saves last Wednesday alone?

"To think he's almost 40 and still throwing 95 miles per hour ... it's almost unthinkable," manager Lloyd McClendon said. "He's a winner. That's easy to stick with."

What's remarkable is the right-handed Mesa (0-1, 2.57 ERA) had to save his career just for the chance to keep saving games.

Stripped of his closer's job by Phillies manager Larry Bowa after blowing four saves in 2003, and barely used during September that season, Mesa didn't have a single major league offer before the 2004 season.

Only Baltimore and Pittsburgh proposed minor league deals, and Mesa chose Pittsburgh's deal of $800,000 in base salary and plenty of incentives (he cashed in $465,00 worth) because it was his best chance to remain a closer.

Getting 300 saves has been in the back of Mesa's mind since the Indians made him their closer in 1994, but keeping his job was more important.

"People thought we were crazy for signing the guy," McClendon said.

Since joining the Pirates, Mesa has shed 15 pounds to get down to 230 and has stepped up what already was an extensive workout program.

"I had to show them I still could pitch," said Mesa, who is 16th in career saves with 305.

He often works out before and after a game, even on days he pitches, and pitching coach Spin Williams said he is so diligent he forces the other pitchers to step up their own programs to stay with him.

Younger pitchers marvel at his long tossing drill, which sees him fire a ball from along the left- or right-field foul line to the opposite line. Setup reliever Salomon Torres said Mesa is so detail-driven he personally makes the coffee in the bullpen, a chore usually assigned to a clubhouse man.

"The leadership he shows the young pitchers, with his work ethic and how to prepare yourself before and after a game, you can't say enough about that," Williams said. "He's one of the biggest helps a pitching coach could ever have, the way he leads by example."

Mesa, known in the past for his mercurial and occasionally hot-tempered personality, also has helped loosen up what once was a low-key and perceptibly tight Pirates clubhouse. Now, during a stretch of nine victories in 12 games, Pirates players are posting stickers poking fun at each other - often at Mesa for his age.

To general manager Dave Littlefield, what matters most is Mesa's consistency. Mesa saved each of the Pirates' first 10 victories; no other reliever in major league history had ever saved more than his team's first five wins.

"The ninth inning is different from any other inning, but he's been fantastic," Littlefield said.

With his conditioning and consistency, Mesa thinks he'll be around a while longer. He is making $2 million, a relative pittance for an established closer, and the Pirates have a club option of $4 million for next season.

Maybe it's because the pressure of closing for a perennial non-contender is different from doing so for the Yankees, Cubs or Phillies, but Mesa talks repeatedly of wanting to stay in Pittsburgh.

"I don't know what's going to happen, but I think I've got a lot of miles left," he said.