HOUSTON — Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera teamed on one more win, one more save.
Not in a game. But for a season.
How many times can you say about a year in which the Yankees did not make the playoffs that there nevertheless was a happy ending?
“There’s still some Yankee magic left after all, I guess,” CC Sabathia said.
Pitching coach Larry Rothschild called it “bittersweet,” and of course it was. Ultimately, the only acceptable conclusion for this franchise is Rivera getting the last out of an entire season, getting consumed by a championship pile. But without Rivera and Pettitte conjuring their youth on the field one last time, providing more to their long legends, there would have been no memorable link between the injury-plagued failure of the season and what promises to be a challenging winter.
Rivera had his cry on the field Thursday at the home finale, the stoic man wilting publicly into Pettitte’s shoulder. A forever snapshot.
And Saturday night Pettitte had his Rome start — part road, part home. He lives nearby, played for the Astros for three years between Yankees stints. So the Minute Maid crowd was pulling for him. Manager Joe Girardi said there was playoff intensity, which seems so strange in a game between the worst Yankees team in two decades and a 110-loss Astros club.
But Sabathia talked about the sweat on his palms because of how much he and everyone on the bench was pulling for Pettitte. He might have a somewhat soiled public perception because of his HGH ties. But no Yankee is more beloved among his mates — for his caring; for his sincerity; for, in Girardi’s words, a “competitiveness as good as anyone I have ever seen.”
There was no Rivera Saturday night. His forearm and knee hurt. He declared his career over. So in what Pettitte called a “fairy tale” he threw his first complete game in seven years, his first for the Yankees in 10. He was classic Pettitte at the beginning, holding Houston hitless in 10 at-bats with men on base through six innings.
And dominant the last three innings, yielding just a one-out hit in the ninth. He was not saving himself for another game or another season, so he invested his body fully. After all of these years of losing battles, first to Joe Torre, then to Girardi about wanting to stay in, it was his call. And he stayed out there to induce J.D. Martinez to ground out. Twenty-seventh out. Career.
The Yankees won 2-1. Pettitte finished 11-11, no losing seasons in his 19 years. His final 10 starts he had a 1.92 ERA. Pettitte got a standing ovation from the crowd, his team, the opponent. He broke down in the press conference afterward when he said he was not worthy of it.
And then, like Rivera, he was done. A Yankee Era departing with him and the great closer. Pettitte and Rivera couldn’t elevate the Yankees to one more championship, and yet they found a way in their ability, humanity and history to nevertheless produce what would have seemed impossible in this season of misery — a happy ending.