HOUSTON — Mariano Rivera’s appearance on Thursday in The Bronx was the last of his career.
“I’m done,” Rivera said before the Yankees’ 2-1 win over the Astros on Saturday night at Minute Maid Park.
Manager Joe Girardi said earlier he would give Rivera the option to change his mind and play Sunday, but Rivera erased any doubt.
“I gave everything that I have,” Rivera said, adding he didn’t want to pitch in a game that had no bearing on the standings. “I was playing for something. I’m not going to play just to play.”
That also includes the possibility of him playing in center field, something Rivera and Girardi had hinted at before the trip, but Rivera didn’t want to take a risk with his surgically-repaired right knee.
“I did consider it strongly,” Rivera said. “If it would have been a few years earlier, then I would have done it. But now my knee is not cooperating. I’m not going to make a fool of myself out there. I respect the game too much for me to do something that I’m not supposed to be doing.”
So the emotional sendoff at Yankee Stadium, when Rivera was taken out of the game by Andy Pettitte and Derek Jeter, will be his final outing of his career.
“I think Thursday was the day that I left everything on the field,” Rivera said. “I was, I won’t say hurt, but sore. I was pitching with a tremendous soreness in my arm.”
When pressed about how his arm felt, Rivera said he had been dealing with a forearm issue.
“My forearm even in the eighth inning on Thursday, I came in — you guys didn’t see me in the dugout — I was trying to put some hot cream [to help] my arm loosen up,” Rivera said. “But that’s something that we don’t talk about. That’s something that you have to manage.”
Rivera said he would have liked his finale to have gone differently in at least one respect.
“I wish I could have continued to the playoffs,” Rivera said. “That’s what we play for. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it.”
Hiroki Kuroda won’t pitch Sunday unless there is an “emergency” according to Girardi.
“He’s thrown so many innings,” Girardi said.
Girardi said he believed the workload — especially during the last two seasons with the Yankees — has taken its toll on the right-hander.
“As I’ve said, his sinker was not the same and his slider was not the same,” Girardi said of Kuroda’s late-season slide. “Last year, it was April when he was inconsistent and then he locked it down. Then this year, he came out of the gate great and then lost something. It could be a combination of all the innings he’s logged the last two years and fatigue.”
Because Kuroda isn’t going to pitch, David Huff is scheduled to start. It will be his first start since a disastrous outing against Red Sox, when he gave up nine runs in just 3¹/₃ innings at Yankee Stadium in place of Phil Hughes . It undoubtedly would have been the lefty’s last start of the season if the Yankees still were in contention .