Sure, the Knicks kicked another one away tonight in Boston but at least we’ve got the Yankees who took at 5-3 lead into the ninth inning. Enter Sandman…

Mariano allows a lead off double.

No sweat.

(more…)

So while I celebrated Passover with my family in a cramped Upper West Side apartment–loud, sweaty, funny–the Knicks were busy breaking their fans’ hearts with a 87-85 loss to the Celtics and the Yanks were engaged in a rainy affair with the Rangers at the Stadium. C.C. didn’t have his best outing but the Yanks kept him in the game. I got home in time to see him walk off the mound with a one-run lead in the seventh and settled down in time to see Joba cough it up.

But the Yanks went ahead in the bottom of the eighth when Eric “Caesar Salad” Chavez ripped an RBI single up the middle off Arthur “Fonzarelli” Rhodes–hey the game was on ESPN, excuse me if the spirit of Chris Berman has taken over, maybe I’m just jacked up on rugelach.

Mariano pitched the ninth and here is how that went.

Final Score: Yanks 6, Rangers 5.

The great Mariano.

Notice the socks?

And the Mike Mussina-like dip?

And the fierceness?

A close call doesn’t go his way.

Really, Blue?

Don’t you know who I am?

The Great Rivera–In Living Color?

Then Alex Rodriguez makes a nice play.

And the game is over.

Another save for Mo. And once again, we are ever grateful.

I’m working on an MLB season preview right now for one of my other gigs, and as part of that I need to have three “Reasons to Watch” for every team. For some, they’re easy to come up with (How will Albert Pujols do in his walk year? Can the Phillies rotation possibly meet epectations?), and in other cases more challenging (the Pirates. Can I say “masochism”?). But for me, it actually may have been trickiest coming up with reasons for the Yankees. It was sort of a forest-for-the-trees effect: I follow them closely enough that things like their 4th- and 5th-rotation slot battles are items of major interest, but I have to remember that the average baseball fan and even the casual yankee fan probably does not give much of a damn wither the 5th starter is Ivan Nova, Bartolo Colon or your aunt Sally. For me, just about everything is a reason to watch: I want to see if Robinson Cano can keept up last year’s torrid pace, if Mark Teixeira can avoid his usual lousy April, if A-Rod’s improved hip leads to another monster season from him, I want to see Mariano Rivera because few things in our imperfect world are so reliably lovely. In fact, I ended up picking for my list Derek Jeter’s upcoming 3,000th hit, which is probably one of the few things that is not really a reason to watch for me. Or, rather, I do want to see Jeter hit 3,000, but I’m dreading the accompanying media hype, which I’m afraid will make the whole run-up to the event itself more or less unbearable.

I think in the end I’ll go with Jeter’s 3,000th hit, Jesus Montero, and Mariano. But I was curious to see what other people would have gone with. If you had to pick three “Reasons to Watch” the Yanks this season, what would they be?

Mariano Rivera reported to camp yesterday and spoke to the press. Chad Jennings has a thorough recap:

Mariano Rivera left home yesterday, doing what Andy Pettitte couldn’t bring himself to do this winter.

“It’s hard,” Rivera said. “One of my kids was, the little one was attached to my hip, crying. It’s hard. A lot of people don’t see that, that part of the game. You have to leave your family. Even though you’re going to see them, being detached from your family is hard.”

It seems Rivera never seriously considered retirement this offseason, but he admitted that leaving home “gets harder and harder,” and now that his oldest son is 17, Rivera realizes he’s “missed a lot of things.”

“Baseball is not everything,” Rivera said. “That’s what we do, yeah, but there’s still life after baseball. There will come a time when you have to make a decision, even though you still have the abilities to play. That comes within yourself. If you don’t feel it in your heart, you don’t feel it in yourself no more, it’s time to say goodbye because, why are you going to do it if you don’t have the desire to do it? That’s why I thank God for Andy, and I respect him because he just didn’t have the desire to do it no more.”

As always, it will be a pleasure to watch the man work.

Has the regular season lost all significance to us as fans?

In the 2010 stretch drive, we watched the Yankees rest their players for the looming Postseason tournament. While there were voices on both sides of the debate, all parties had to agree their was a heirarchy of achievement in which the World Series placed at the top. This reduced the substance of the argument for those of us gunning for the division crown to purely nominal terms.

And the Yankees don’t even hang a little felt pennant unless they win the Series.

But we marginalize the regular season at our own peril. Sooner or later, and possibly even this year, it’s all we’ll have. In those years, I don’t intend to stop being a fan, so I think it’s a good idea to try to realign priorities in order to make that fandom possible. After all, what value is the regular season if losing out on the World Series invalidates everything that preceded it?

Baseball viewed through the prism of the postseason ignores the fact the foundations of championships extend all the way back into April, and even into surrounding seasons. It’s an iceberg viewed from an airplane – most of the mass is underwater.

But no more! We have exhumed the “Lost Classics” of regular seasons past. Games that deserve our attention. Games that defined players and teams, that set-up championships, that were epic poems in and of themselves. Without these games, there are no Hall of Fame inductions, no retired numbers, and no parades. And after all, isn’t baseball a summer game?

THE BIRTH OF COOL (AND CONFIDENT) – July 4th, 1995

Our first extract from the vault of “Lost Classics” hails from the pre-natal days of the most recent dynasty. It was Independence Day, 1995 and the Yankees were visiting Chicago. We need not describe their opponent any further, because way back in 1995, there was no interleague play. Both teams, division leaders at the time of the 1994 strike, were struggling since the return to play and found themselves on the frowny side of .500.

The Yankees had problems in the rotation (I guess as almost every team does almost every year) and were searching for answers.  Even back in 1995, Jack Curry had the goods:

Without Jimmy Key for at least the rest of the season and probably without Melido Perez and Scott Kamieniecki until the second half of the season, the Yankees have desperately searched for starters. They have talked on the phone about trades and searched on the farm for the right prospect.

Rookie Mariano Rivera had debuted earlier in the season and spilled his first cup of coffee with the Yankees right down the front of his brand new uniform. He got the ball four times and was awful three times. In 15 innings, he allowed 18 runs, and even more striking, walked as many men as he struck out – eight. He got battered back to Columbus dragging a 10.20 ERA behind him. But in Columbus, something clicked.

Rivera had not allowed a run in his last 20 2/3 innings in the minors, so when the right-hander returned on Monday for his second stint of the season with the Yankees, he carried a scoreless streak with him. … In his last start, Rivera won a five-inning no-hitter for Columbus against Rochester. … With a microscopic 1.17 earned run average in five starts at Columbus and a 1-2 record and 10.20 e.r.a. with the Yankees before today, Rivera had a goal: to prove he could win in the majors.

Rivera earned another shot in the bigs. He faced the Chicago White Sox who were an above average offensive team – they could hit for average and scored the fifth most runs in the American League. It wasn’t a powerhouse, but it wasn’t a bad representation of the division-winning White Sox lineups from 1993 and 1994. And they couldn’t sniff Mo’s stuff.

He struck out 11 batters, and nine of those were swinging whiffs. When they put the bat on it, they could only manage weak contact as the Sox grounded 12 outs to the infield while getting only four balls to the outfielders. Dave Martinez (later corroborated by John Kruk on Baseball Tonight) offers Curry a likely explanation: “The scouting report we had said that he throws about 85 or 86,” White Sox outfielder Dave Martinez said. “He was throwing a lot harder than that.”

Frank Thomas got him for two singles and a fly out, but in those days, that was not a bad line versus the Big Hurt at his most bone-crushingest. None of the rest of the team had any chance, though the veterans were annoyingly patient and worked all four walks (Kruk twice, Dave Martinez and Ozzie Guillen). Robin Ventura made two loud outs (around a swinging strike out), so I guess he was able to square it up a little bit, too.

Not only was Mariano dominant, he was only in one mini-jam the whole game. It was the type of jam that you’d expect from a rookie, but one that seems totally uncharacteristic given what we know of the pitcher today. After Paul O’Neill staked him a 1-0 lead in the top of the fourth with a solo jack, Mariano committed the cardinal sin of walking the lead off man Dave Martinez in front of Frank Thomas and Robin Ventura. He got Thomas to fly out, but then balked Martinez over to second – that’s one of three balks in his 16-year career.

With the runner in scoring position (the only one he would allow all game), he bore down and struck out Ventura to culminate an eight-pitch at bat. He lost John Kruk on a full count, but rebounded to strike out Warren Newsome to end the threat.

Already cruising, after the fourth he found a higher gear. He allowed only one more single and one more walk, and struck out six to wrap up his night. He left after 129 pitches and eight superb innings and his final line tallied 11 strikeouts, four walks, two hits, and zero runs. The Yankees iced the game with a couple of sac flies and a Bernie Williams triple. John Wetteland wobbled in the 9th and gave up a run but never had to face the tying run as the Yanks won 4-1. I assume there was much rejoicing.

(more…)

Baseball never feels farther away than when you’re wading through three-foot snow drifts. I drove back to the city from upstate New York on Sunday and got home just as the roads started getting really adventurous. Yesterday, stuck and abandoned cars were all over the streets, and today everything is still eerie and off-kilter, if pretty sweet-looking. It’s hard to even imagine April.

Here’s something that helps, though: the 2011 Bill James Handbook, which my dad got me for Chrismukkah (he’s also the one who got me James’ Historical Baseball Abstract one fateful holiday when I was still in college). I don’t get as excited about the Handbook as I do about Baseball Prospectus every year – or as I would have for James’ yearly abstracts had I been old enough to read them at the time – simply because it is almost entirely tables and numbers, with very few essays and little analysis. It’s a very handy reference, though, and there are always some gems in there; and in a blizzard, in the early dark, at the tail end of the year, you take your baseball where you can get it.

Interesting things from a first flip through the Handbook:

*Maybe some of you already knew this, but in  bit of an upset, our own Brett Gardner won the 2010 Fielding Bible Award for left field, beating out three-time champ and 2009 winner Carl Crawford.

*The first-ever unanimous Fielding Bible winner was three-peater Yadier Molina. Sigh.

*The most intriguing thing in this year’s handbook, to me, was the new section on Managers, a feature I expect to refer to often this year. For every Major League manager it includes, among other stats:

• Lineups Used (LUp)
• Platoon Percentage (Pl%, the percentage of players in the starting lineup who have the platoon percentage)
• Pinch Hitters Used (PH)
• Pinch Runners Used (PR)
• Quick Hooks and Slow Hooks (with more detailed explanations of what those terms mean these days)
• Long Outings (LO, meaning more than 110 pitches in a start)
• Relievers Used on Consecutive Days (RCD)
• Long Saves (LS)
• Stolen Base Attempts
• Sacrifice Bunt Attempts (SacA) (“Per 162 games, Clint Hurdle’s teams averaged 108 sacrifice bunt attempts, which was necessary because it is so difficult to score in Colorado”).
• Pitchouts (PO)
• Intentional Walks (IBB) and also their results: Good, Not Good, or Bomb.

Like I said, very cool. So we can see that Joe Girardi had more quick hooks than most managers (46), and that he used a fairly normal number of lineups (114 – Trey Hillman’s Royals used just 24, the Red Sox used 143, and Tony LaRussa, naturally, led ’em all with 147). He and his players attempted fewer stolen bases than in any of his previous years as a manager,  and he ordered 37 intentional walks – a slightly higher number than most AL managers – of which 26 got a good result.

One item that I found particularly interesting: in 2006 with the Marlins, Girardi faced some criticism for overusing pitchers and wearing them out, risking injury; last year, he was sometimes criticized for being overly cautious with his pitchers. And yet over the course of his career, he has remained pretty consistent in how often he uses relievers on consecutive days, and in how often he has a slow hook on his starters. Obviously those stats don’t tell the entire story, but they do suggest to me that some assessments of Girardi’s managing probably have more to do with perception than facts.

There are also projections for every hitter and pitcher, but I prefer to wait and see how James’ projections compare with BP’s PECOTA and other systems, to get a better sense of the general range a player’s numbers are expected to fall in. (I will be a lot more zealous about that if I decide to do a fantasy team this year. Until I get organized enough to remember to arrange my pitching staff over the course of a season it’s probably a futile undertaking). But I couldn’t resist checking on our favorite demigod Mariano Rivera. James’ projection:

61 games, 62 innings, 47 hits, 3 HRs, 11 walks, 58 Ks, 1.89 ERA.

That’s what I like to see.

"Huzzah!"

Excellent if unsurprising news for Bomber fans, who can sleep a little easier tonight: Mariano Rivera is going to re-up. The Daily News got the scoop:

I never thought that Mo would leave, or that the Yankees would let him, but nevertheless: phew. And the deal seems fair to me. Obviously with any player Rivera’s age, there are concerns — but he hasn’t slipped an inch yet, and this contract isn’t going to be too huge a drag on the Yanks even if he does. Like almost everything else he’s ever done in New York, the negotiations seem to’ve been smooth as silk.

Tyler Kepner on Mariano Rivera:

Mariano Rivera, who turned 41 on Monday, has continued to defy age. Every year since turning 35, he has pitched fewer innings than he did the year before. Starting in 2004, Rivera’s innings have gone from 78 2/3 to 78 1/3 to 75 to 71 1/3 to 70 2/3 to 66 1/3 to 60.

Rivera pitches less often, but when he does pitch, he is basically as effective as always. He has stayed strong enough to dominate in the postseason, allowing just one run in 28 innings over the Yankees’ last four appearances.

…There are no comparable players to Rivera. The closest is Hoffman, the only pitcher with more career saves than Rivera’s 559. But Hoffman has had two seasons with an earned run average less than 2.00; Rivera has had 10. Rivera has logged more innings in fewer games, and the workload of roughly two extra seasons across all those Octobers.

Okay, we can now go back to fretting about Derek Jeter, Andy Pettitte and Cliff Lee (for the record, I say the Yanks start the season with all three–four, including Rivera–on the roster).

Banter Birthday wishes go out to . . .

The greatest relief pitcher in history . . . Mariano Rivera (turns 41 today):

And the greatest play-by-play announcer in baseball history . . . Vin Scully (turns 83 today):

[Images: Wikipedia.org]

From Jon Heyman via the indefatigable Craig Calcaterra:

The Yankees are busy with Derek Jeter and Cliff Lee, but after that’s all said and done, Mariano Rivera will be tops on their priority list. Jon Heyman reports today that, when they do get to him, they’ll find that he wants a two-year deal, not a one-year deal.

This should not be a problem. I think you pretty much give Mariano Rivera whatever he wants. At least within reason. He earned 2011 by continuing to be awesome in 2010. While, sure, he might fall off a cliff eventually, who has a greater right to ask for an extra year than Mariano Rivera? He’s carried them for 15 years. They can carry him for one if, for some reason, next season is his last effective one.

Agreed. No problems here. Two years sounds beautiful to me.

[Drawing by Ricardo Lopez Ortiz]

Joe Pos on The Great Mariano:

There’s nothing left really to say about his greatness. We all know the story. He throws that cutter precisely where he wants, it turns left just as it gets to the plate, and there has never been anyone quite like him.

Still, watching him break four bats on Wednesday night — I’m pretty sure he broke Denard Span’s bat when getting the last out of the eighth, then broke Orlando Hudson’s bat, Joe Mauer’s bat and Jim Thome’s bat in the ninth — was another awe-inspiring reminder. He clearly does not throw as hard as he once did. Teams have broken him down on video for more than a decade. We all KNOW exactly what he’s going to do. And still, major league hitters come up, they swing at his cutter, the ball breaks in two inches more than they expected, they break their bat. In Las Vegas, I’ve seen David Copperfield make a car appear out of thin air, and I’ve seen Lance Burton duel someone in a costume who turns out to be Lance Burton. I’m sure I could watch those tricks 50 times and never figure out how they are done. I’m sure I could watch those tricks 100 times and never figure out how they’re done.

But Mariano Rivera has pitched 1,150 innings in the big leagues. He has pitched another 135 or so postseason innings. He has faced almost 900 different big league hitters. And this same trick, precisely this same trick, works almost every time. The Twins may or may not be good enough to come back in this series. They will obviously need to beat up on the Yankees’ second-string starting pitchers, and try to hold their own against this relentless Yankees offense. What they do know is this: They ain’t going to win it in the ninth inning. Mariano Rivera turns 41 next month. He is aging just like the rest of us. But for one more year, it sure looks like nobody is going to beat the Yankees in the ninth inning.

Andy Pettitte is a big man with a huge ass and strong legs, but watching him pitch, the word that comes to mind is: touch. Petttitte was everything the Yankees could have expected today, allowing one run over six innings on 79 pitches and he was a pleasure to watch, adding, subtracting–pitching.

It was a sleepy afternoon at Camden Yards with the Yanks leading most of the way. But the O’s rallied late, scoring once in the eighth and again in the ninth to force extra innings–Mariano Rivera allowed just his second home run of the year, this one to Luke Scott. It was on the second pitch of the at-bat, a cutter that was low but right over the plate, and Scott popped it over the tall right field wall. And like that, a seemingly casual win turned into a ballgame.

In the 11th, Alex Rodriguez led off with a pinch-hit walk against the lefty Mike Gonzalez. Eduardo Nunez replaced Rodriguez as a pinch runner, Ramiro Pena squared to bunt and took a strike. Then Gonzalez threw the ball away trying to keep Nunez close at first,  a one-hoper into the stands. Joe Girardi replaced Pena with Marcus Thames who worked the count full and then waved over a slider for the first out.

Mark Teixeira pinch hit for Brett Gardner and was intentionally walked. Derek Jeter was next and he too was given a free pass, bringing up Fat Elvis, who has struggled as right-handed hitter. Berkman hit a high chopper to third base and as the Orioles started the 5-4-3 double play, it looked like even Fat Elvis would be able to leg it out. But he didn’t make it, out by a step. The play took forever to unfold and once Berkman was called out it was clear to this viewer that the Yanks were not going to win. Twelve runners left on base is too much.

At least it was swift. Scott led off with a bloop double then Ty Wigginton hit a rocket in the gap to end it. Final Score: O’s 4, Yanks 3.

Regrettable loss for the Yanks–aren’t they all regrettable, though?–as they blow a chance to gain another game on Tampa, who lost to the Angels.

Yanks, Rays, four games back home in the Bronx starting tomorrow. Then the Red Sox over the weekend.

Should be lively.

[Pictures by Bags]

The Great One

Ivan Nova gave up a long home run to the second batter of the game but the Yanks jumped on Brandon Morrow for two runs in the first, two in the second and one in the third giving Nova something he’s been unaccustomed to so far in his brief Major League career–a lead.

Then in the third inning Lyle Overbay lead off with a double that fell in the right-center field gap between Curtis Granderson and Austin Kearns. Aaron Hill hit the next pitch even deeper into the same gap for an RBI double. Pitch after that was a ball outside, so Jorge Posada went out to the mound and stood on the outfield side of his young pitcher, uphill so they could see eye-to-eye, and handed him the ball. Posada didn’t take off the face mask. His back was to the TV camera. Before he was finished speaking, Posada placed his right hand flat on Nova’s chest, and left it there for a good five count.

It was a simple, calming gesture, a throwaway really. But it’s that small stuff, those kinds of details, that I find so compelling these days when we’ve got so much access to the games and the players but such limited access to really knowing them as personalities, at least in the way that we knew recent generations of jocks and celebrities, through the print media.

Of course, watching Mariano smile in the ninth inning, enjoying a laugh and handshakes all around once again is one of the distinct pleasures I’ll ever know. It never gets old and I appreciate it each and every time, knowing it will not last forever, knowing the bulk of his great career is behind us now.

Nova wasn’t terrific in his fourth start, didn’t pitch long enough to get the win, one out away. The bullpen didn’t give up a run, Curtis Granderson had two more hits and three RBI, and Fat Elvis had a couple of hits too, as did lil’ Nunez and Pena. Robbie Cano doesn’t look himself, and John Flaherty was on to something when he suggested that this might be a decent time for him to get a couple of days off. Otherwise, it was another happy day in Yankeeland, an ideal way to kick off the holiday weekend.

Final Score: Yanks 7, Jays 3

Hoo-Ha.

Feels so good…ya heard?

1-04 Dry Bones

[Photo Credit: AP Photo/Bill Kostroun, Bags]

Who is the more valuable Yankee since 1996: Mariano Rivera or Derek Jeter?

Joe Posnanski asks the question over at SI.com.

[Drawing by Larry Roibal]

The Yankees won last night’s game 7-6, but that’s kind of like saying the plot of The Sun Also Rises is “a guy watches some bullfights.” I really don’t know where to start with this particular thrill ride, which, around 10 PM, I thought the Yankees had absolutely no shot at winning. (I wasn’t far wrong). In fact, I didn’t really think they had a shot until they actually took the lead and put Mariano Rivera on the mound, and then right away the first batter he faced hit a triple and I still wasn’t so sure. But I’m getting ahead of myself here. They say when you don’t know where to start, you should start at the beginning.

The Yankees were facing Cliff Lee, who, in case you’d forgotten, is mind-bogglingly awesome. Since arriving in Texas he’s walked three batters – two of those intentionally. (Though why the hell Cliff Lee was intentionally walking anybody I can’t imagine). He’s allowed nine walks all season, which makes me think of Joe DiMaggio and that crazy 1941 season where he only struck out 13 times. I’ve had a platonic baseball-crush on Lee ever since he made that sick behind-the-back catch in Game 1 of last fall’s World Series and then shrugged it off with Steve-McQueen cool; I’ve also been looking at him as a bit superhuman, and so I didn’t expect much from the Yankees last night. Especially since Marcus Thames was batting third*.

And, against Cliff Lee, they indeed didn’t do much… except they had some good at-bats, and made him work (though of course not actually walk anybody), which is often really the only thing you can do when facing someone like Lee. The Rangers didn’t beat around the bush, starting their scoring in the 1st with a Michael Young homer, as Javier Vazquez continued to struggle with both his velocity and his location. The Yankees evened things up in the 4th, when Marcus Thames singled and A-Rod doubled him home and I thought, not for the first nor last time over a four-hour span, okay maybe I’ve been a little hard on Marcus Thames; but it didn’t take. The Rangers scored two more in the bottom of the inning (two-run Mitch Moreland single, off the glove of Lance “not Mark Teixeira” Berkman at first), and three more in the fifth (single, single, botched run-down, double, fielder’s choice, single), and when Javy slumped off the mound to make way for Sergio Mitre it was 6-1 and I was thinking about how I should frame the loss in the recap.

But Sergio Mitre was just fine, actually – 1.2 hitless, scoreless innings – and it turned out the Yankees were only mostly dead (“mostly dead is slightly alive!”). In the same way they used to have some success against aces like Pedro Martinez back in the day, they took a bunch of pitches, fouled others off, kept scuffling, and got Lee out of the game after 6.1 innings – which is, by Cliff Lee standards, quite early; as Michael Kay pointed out, Lee had pitched 8 innings or more in ten straight starts. The comeback trail began in the sixth, when Derek Jeter tripled –  seems like it’s been a long time since I wrote that – and scored on a rare Cliff Lee wild pitch, but I don’t think the Rangers were exactly quaking in their boots at that point. The next inning, though, things started to get a little interesting: Robinson Cano doubled, and Austin Kearns singled, hard, and when Austin Kearns creams one like that it’s a pretty good sign that Cliff Lee is probably starting to get a little tired. (It was 100 degrees in Texas last night, which couldn’t have helped any). Lance Berkman hit a ground-rule double, and then Brett Gardner singled, and suddenly it was a decently close 6-4 game. The Texas bullpen is very good, though, and the Yankees were relying on Kerry Wood for two innings, so I remained unimpressed except in a vague, it’s-nice-they’re-showing-some-fight-however-futile sort of way.

Like Sergio Mitre before him, Kerry Wood exceeded my expectations, although he did add a little spice, in the form of two straight singles in the seventh before he induced a Nelson Cruz double play. But he kept things from getting any worse, and so when Marcus Thames led off the 8th inning with a sonic boom of a home run off Frank Francisco – huh, perhaps I really was a little hard on that guy – it was suddenly a one-run affair. Cano and Posada walked… but then Austin Kearns, who giveth and taketh away, ground into a DP of his own and you had to figure that was probably that.

In the top of the ninth inning, Lance Berkman walked and, being rather less swift than a puma these days, Curtis Granderson came on to run for him. And he drew a lot of attention from the hard-throwing Rangers reliever of the moment, Neftali Feliz, but he still hadn’t gotten anywhere when Brett Gardner singled him over. Derek Jeter was getting ready to bunt (grrrrr), but Feliz — perhaps overcome with admiration for Jeter’s selflessness in being willing to sacrifice himself for his team! — threw a wild pitch and both Granderson and Gardner advanced, no bunt necessary. Jeter then bent over, picked a four-leaf clover, and hit a sneaky seeing-eye hopper of a single that came within an inch of being caught by both the pitcher and the second baseman before trickling into the outfield. Tie game. Nick Swisher struck out, but that brought up Marcus Thames, who singled off of Alexi Ogando, scoring Gardner and giving the Yankees their first lead of the game.

You know, it’s possible I’ve been a little hard on Marcus Thames.

Anyway, the one-run lead meant Mariano Rivera for the bottom of the ninth. I’d say he was looking for redemption after the previous night’s rare blown save but, really, Mariano Rivera doesn’t need any redemption; he’s got redemption coming out of his ears. He did, however, give everyone a bit of a start by immediately giving up a whopping triple to Elvis Andrus.

Michael Young flew out, just not quiiiiite far enough to score the run.

Josh Hamilton grounded directly into Rivera’s glove.

Vlad Guerrero took one whole pitch before swinging from his heels and sending the ball to Alex Rodriguez, who made a nice play and tossed him out by several entire feet.

If the Yanks and Rangers meet down the road in October, it could be quite a series. In the interests of being prepared, I recommend you start discussing blood pressure medication with your doctor sooner rather than later.

—

*There’s no doubt that the Yankees miss Mark Teixeira – that lineup hasn’t been looking all that awe-inspiring the last few days. (Still, to the people who are actually upset that Teixeira is taking several days off to be with his newborn child and wife, I can only say: you’ll feel differently about this down the road, once you’ve matured a bit, and passed puberty.) Ken Singleton made the extremely good point that, as with the Bereavement List, when players leave for the birth of a child, their team should be able to call up a replacement. Teams would therefore feel less of a squeeze when a player like Teixeira does the right thing and spends a couple of days with his family, and there would be less pressure on the player himself to rush back immediately. Paternity leave: get on it, MLBPA.

Couple few news items worth noting…

Mariano Rivera is banged-up. He has a sore right knee. His left rib cage is aching too, so Rivera will not appear in the All-Star Game next week. Joe Girardi is downplaying the injuries but at 40-years-old, Rivera’s health is of concern.

I’ve daydream occasionally, wondering how Rivera’s career will end. The daydreams are always tidy–the Yanks win another Serious and Rivera walks away on top. Reality usually doesn’t comply with these kinds of fantasies but still, it shouldn’t stop us from dreaming. Anyhow, I could easily see this being Rivera’s swan swong, or I could see him returning for another season or two. One thing I’m hyper-aware of–and have been since, oh, about November, 2001–is that it’s not going to last, that life as a Yankee fan will soon be different, that it is important to appreciate every time Rivera is out on the mound, no matter the result.

* * * *

Robbie Cano is going to participate in the Home Run Derby come Monday. My first thought, without causing undo embarrassment, I hope he goes out in the first round. Then I read this from the Yankees’ hitting coach, Kevin Long:

“I would prefer he’s not involved in it, but that’s not my decision,” Kevin Long said. “History suggests that guys that do the home run hitting contest get fatigued and exhausted from the process. I’m happy for the fact that he’s maybe getting the opportunity, but in the same breath we have to be careful in how he goes about this.”

…”I think it’s a lot of swings for a player; physically, I think it’s somewhat of a grind, but it’s an honor to be involved,” Girardi said. “The biggest thing is that we keep Robinson Cano healthy and strong the whole year. If that in any way would fatigue him, then I would prefer that he didn’t get fatigued.”
(Feinsand, N.Y. Daily News)

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There is an exhaustive, though ultimately not especially rewarding profile of Mariano Rivera by James Traub in the New York Times Magazine. Perhaps we’re the wrong audience for this story. Closer to the point, I don’t think Mariano is an interesting subject for a magazine piece. He’s dull, in fact, too guarded to reveal anything about his personal life.  How does a savant articulate his gift? Shrugs his shoulders and says he’s doing the Lord’s work.

Writers are left to wax poetic over Mo’s on-the-field accomplishments, his style, his calm, his greatness, his influence around the clubhouse. A writer can talk to players around the league, add some quotes about just how good Mariano is, but otherwise, what is there to say?

So this story is thorough but it doesn’t tell us anything we don’t already know about Rivera, and some of Traub’s characterizations are off-base: Kevin Youkilis is a described as a “batting genius” while Jonathan Paplebon is called “the closer who has become Rivera’s great rival.” Youkilis is a great hitter, but a genius? And if Rivera and Paplebon have a rivalry that’s news to me (they just happen to play for rival  teams).

It’s worth checking out, and I rarely tire of reading about Mo, but considering the author and the publication, I was disappointed.

However, the Times does have a cool video piece on Mo that is well-worth looking at.

[Photo Credit: National Geographic]

It’s been almost nine years since he blew Game 7 of the Whirled Serious out in Arizona…It’s astonishing to consider how great Rivera has been since that loss.

He’s 40 now, and yeah, Mariano’s still pretty damn good.

Photo by Al Bello/Getty Images

I’ve long ago made peace with the fact that I cannot simply brush off Yankee losses, even in April or May. I am invested, so each defeat carries a sting. The good news, though, is that there’s always another game waiting around the corner and the team is usually at or near the top of the standings. I mourn, I recover, I move on.

But every once in a while a game comes along that cuts a bit deeper; Sunday was one of those games. It started out fine, of course, as the Yankees led 3-1 after six. Worked well for me, since my parents were in town and the kids were eagerly showing off their bike-riding skills outside. I could join the fun in the front yard, comfortable knowing that the bullpen would somehow stumble through the seventh before handing off to Joba in the eighth and Mo in the ninth.

But of course, it didn’t work that way. I managed to sneak in just in time to catch Joba walking off the mound after loading the bases, but I was only mildly concerned. Rivera was on the way, and everything would be fine. Soon enough, it wasn’t.

The thing about baseball, is that we get used to failure. Derek Jeter is my favorite player, a player who has come through in big situations an awful lot in his career, but when he came up as the tying run in the ninth inning, I can’t honestly say that I expected victory. I hoped, but I did not assume.

It’s different with Mariano. He might not be favorite player, but he is the one I expect to succeed every single time. Game 4 in Cleveland, Game 7 in Arizona, and Games 4 and 5 in Boston are all burned into my psyche, but even when taken together, those four games can never outweigh all of the other evidence telling me that Rivera is invincible.

So when Rivera is touched for a loss the way he was on Sunday, it amounts to much more than just a loss in the standings. It shakes me to my core, calling into question all that I believe in. The game itself becomes secondary as I struggle to make sense of what I’ve just seen: Mariano has failed.

Greater writers than I have tried to explain the wonders of Mariano Rivera; rather than attempting to improve upon them, I’ll use the words of the greatest writer of all time. Mariano “is an ever-fixed mark that looks upon tempests and is never shaken; [he] is the star to every wandering bark, whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.” Sure, Shakespeare was talking about true love, but when it comes right down to it, is there any greater love than Mo?