BOSTON – There are teammates and Yankees staff members who strongly believe Mike Mussina will take his initial 20-win season and vanish.
After the Yankees’ 6-2 win over the Red Sox yesterday in front of 37,091 at a soggy Fenway Park in the first game of a doubleheader, the antique right-hander called his 18th season the final one. In Game 2, the Yankees lost 4-3 in 10 innings to finish the season at 89-73.
“Having waited until my last year, with all these years (eight) in New York and 39 years-old and I have been close other times,” said Mussina, who came within three outs in 1996 with Baltimore of a 20-win season and 19 and 18 twice. “It’s worth being close all those times to do it this late in your career.”
Asked if his borderline Hall of Fame career was over because he said this was his final season, Mussina backtracked.
“As of right now, it’s my last game in my last year,” Mussina said. “I don’t know what the future holds.”
Because Mussina’s family, which left during the eighth inning made sweaty by Joba Chamberlain, wants him home, retirement wouldn’t shock those who know him. He also knows it will take three more years to reach 300 (yesterday was 270 and tied him with Burleigh Grimes for 32nd on the all-time list), limiting himself to teams within commuting distance to his home in Montoursville, Pa. He also does not need the money and knows he isn’t about to run off a string of 20-win seasons in his 40s.
“It’s not about salary,” said Mussina, who got through six scoreless innings despite a right elbow that hadn’t fully recovered from getting hit Tuesday night in Toronto. “It’s being in the right situation to win as a group and trying to win 300. If the situation isn’t ideal for me and it’s better to coach Little League then it will be time for me.”
After Xavier Nady’s three-run homer in the fourth staked Mussina to a 3-0 lead, he started to believe the elusive 20 could happen. Following the sixth he told manager Joe Girardi he liked the way the bullpen was set up. And his elbow wasn’t right.
“The elbow wasn’t what I hoped it would be,” said Mussina, who gave up three hits, fanned three and walked two. “We had the lead and I told (Girardi), ‘Don’t let it get away from us.’ ”
With Mussina saying goodbye to his family outside the clubhouse, Chamberlain almost flushed the lead and Mussina’s chance at 20 when he walked Jason Bay and surrendered a ground-rule double to Mark Kotsay to start the eighth.
Girardi immediately called for Brian Bruney, who caught Jed Lowrie looking and traded a run for an out by inducing Chris Carter to ground out. Damaso Marte was summoned and gave up an RBI single to Jacoby Ellsbury. That forced Girardi to go for Mariano Rivera, who today will announce he will undergo offseason shoulder surgery to remove bone calcification from atop the AC joint in the right shoulder.
Rivera retired AL MVP candidate Dustin Pedroia and worked around shortstop Cody Ransom’s ninth-inning error to post his 39th save in 40 chances.
If Mussina does retire, is 270 wins, all of them in the AL East, most of them in the Steroid Era and a lot of them in hitter-friendly Camden Yards good enough to get him into Cooperstown?
“I don’t know, I passed some impressive names,” Mussina said. “You get into the discussion with Jim Palmer and Bob Gibson and some other guys I won more games than, Whitey (Ford), (Don) Drysdale, (Sandy) Koufax. It’s a pretty big list. When you are able to get into the discussion maybe people take a closer look.”