Tuesday, October 23, 2001
Yankees' last call - Rivera
Closer tough in postseason
By Tim Sullivan
The Cincinnati Enquirer
NEW YORK — Mariano Rivera is the great unequalizer.
He's what sets the New York Yankees apart, the most dominant part of their dynasty. He's reduced the ninth inning to rote, and the playoffs to predictability.
He's as sure a sign of closing time as a bartender flicking the light switch.
New York's peerless relief pitcher had saved 22 straight post-season games when he achieved a new milestone in the ninth inning Sunday night: Three pitches, three outs. The relative ease of his effort was underscored when Yankee rookie Alfonso Soriano won the game with a two-run homer in the bottom of the ninth.
Simply put, the Yankees took a 3-1 lead in the American League Championship Series because Rivera slammed the door shut and Seattle's Kazuhiro Sasaki slammed the door on his foot.
“We had the bullpen set up the way we wanted it,” Mariners manager Lou Piniella said.
Well, no.
M's need a Rivera
Piniella's pen is lavishly deep and beautifully balanced, but he doesn't have Rivera or a reasonable facsimile. He doesn't have a closer who performs in post-season as if he were pitching to balsa bats. The Yankees own the monopoly on this commodity in the person of the spindly Panamanian with the compact delivery and the fearsome cut fastball.
Rivera saved a major-league leading 50 games during the regular season, blowing seven save attempts, charged with six defeats. It was an excellent season by any standard except in comparison to Rivera's own October statistics.
Consider: In 34 post-season appearances since 1998, Rivera has allowed four earned runs in 50 innings. That computes to an ERA of 0.72 over a four-year span against the best teams in baseball. Sixteen times Rivera has pitched at least two innings in post-season competition. Only once — against Cleveland in 1997 — has he disappointed.
“One of the biggest question marks when he became a closer was, "Is he going to be available every day?'” Yankee pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre said Monday. “In five years, I can count on one hand the number of days we have not wanted to use him. And he's never come to me and said he needs a day off.”
Yanks save Rivera
From April through September, the Yankees try to ration Rivera. He pitched two full innings only four times during the regular season, but after his three-pitch ninth, Stottlemyre planned to use him for as many as three innings Sunday night.
“When you go through the year and you try to keep enough fuel in the tank, it's for the post-season,” Yankees manager Joe Torre said before the ALCS. “We try to save (Rivera) for this time of year if we are fortunate enough to get here and he's really been able to thrive on it.”
Rivera walked only 12 hitters against 83 strikeouts during the regular season, and routinely gets ahead in the count with a first-pitch strike.
Considering his control, and the quality of his stuff, it's remarkable Rivera has not had more three-pitch innings. But late Sunday night, he could not remember another one.
“I never had that,” Rivera said. “It was great ... There's no better feeling than 55,000 people standing up chanting, "New York, New York.'”
Contact Tim Sullivan at 768-8456; fax: 768-8550; e-mail: tsullivan@enquirer.com.
Reds Stories
Bengals on seesaw of mediocrity
Bengals look for a kicker
LeBeau lectures, Dillon fumes
Bengals notebook
Lions: Crowell done for year
Winless Detroit has an assortment of problems
Eagles 10, Giants 9
Colts' collapse
NFL notebook
Elder QB Bolger emerges
Ohio's best football: North or South?
IH knocks out Badin
Kentucky HS football poll
Kentucky soccer roundup
Ohio soccer roundup
HS Soccer schedules
HS Volleyball schedules
Cross country polls and times
HS soccer scores
Louisville looms as worthy rival
Week's work does wonders for Barker
Caudle stays ineligible
Oklahoma, Nebraska 1-2 in BCS
Area colleges roundup
• Return to Reds front page...
Yankees' last call - Rivera
