AT 5:20 p.m. yesterday “Enter Sandman” by Metallica cranked through Shea Stadium and Met players hit line drives to all fields.
How nice for the Mets that this was Shea and the guy throwing batting practice was bullpen catcher Dave Racaniello.
Normally “Enter Sandman” is a funeral dirge for hitters because it is the song that brings Mariano Rivera to the mound. And, in October, batters would rather hear that bats will be made of paper next year than hear Rivera’s theme. Because Halloween does not close October as well as Rivera does.
“They have a lot of great players,” Bobby Valentine said of the Yankees. “But as far as value, he is in another category.”
The Yankees have exceptional starting pitching, so do the Braves and Mets. The Yankees have a good defense, but not as good as Cleveland and San Francisco. The Yankees have an effective, veteran lineup, but the White Sox and A’s have orders that pose at least as much threat.
At this time of year, the Yankees separate themselves from all other teams for one reason – a 170-pound, cutter-throwing dynamo.
“If you had to delineate the one reason the Yankees win, he is the most unique, distinct reason,” Indians assistant GM Mark Shapiro said. “Other teams match up with the Yankees in other areas, but Rivera is the most unique component. No other club has that.”
The Yankees went into Game 5 last night one victory shy of securing a fourth World Series title in five years. It is impossible to think of a reason greater than Rivera. In 1996, Rivera was the Yankees’ best pitcher as the set-up man for John Wetteland and, for the last three seasons, he has been their most important pitcher.
With him, the Yankees play October games backward. If they lead after seven innings, they win. So Joe Torre is always pushing to gain the lead by then and opposing managers are doing everything to avoid an eighth-inning deficit.
“He’s not an illusion, he’s the real deal,” Valentine said of Rivera. “[To have a great closer] is what gives a team confidence. It is what gives a team wins. And he’s the best one at it, so they have a little more than other teams at the end of games.”
Since 1996, Joe Torre has operated with a weapon no other team can deploy, what has gone from an October surprise to a fall classic. Since 1996, Rivera has dominated the postseason.
Opponents were hitting .181 off him with a .221 on-base percentage and a feeble .246 slugging percentage. He has allowed a .150 batting average with runners in scoring position. He has never allowed two hits with runners in scoring position in any of his 40 post-season games.
But the brilliance of Rivera is best understood in comparisons to his contemporaries. Mark Wohlers saved 39 games in the 1996 season, but not the World Series Game 4 against the Yankees he had absolutely had to.
Trevor Hoffman saved 53 games in 1998, but not the World Series Game 3 against the Yankees he absolutely had to. Armando Benitez saved 41 games this year, but not the World Series Game 1 against the Yankees he absolutely had to.
So Atlanta lost to the Yankees in 1996, San Diego to the Yankees in 1998 and the Mets were on the verge of losing to the Yankees this year, going into last night’s Game 5 down three-games-to-one.
Overall, Rivera is 4-0 with a 0.73 ERA. He has converted 19 of 20 post-season saves. The lone failure came in Game 4 of the 1997 Division Series when Sandy Alomar homered off him, and the Yanks ultimately were eliminated, the lone year under Torre they have not won the World Series. Rivera had responded by running off his next 17 post-season save tries.
Jay Payton hit a two-run homer off Rivera in the ninth inning of the Yankees’ 6-5 Game 2 victory. However, when he had to, Rivera struck out Kurt Abbott to close that game. In Game 4, with a one-run margin of error, Rivera retired six of the seven batters he faced as he continued to give Torre a two-inning close option.
Valentine said Rivera threw his hitters almost exclusively a cutter. The hitters knew it was coming. But so what.
“No one else throws a 94-mph cutter,” Valentine said. “It’s like bird watching in a foreign land. You can’t understand it.”
Rivera is a strange bird indeed, one that soars higher and higher in October; one strong enough to carry an entire team on a single wing.