ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The previous regular-season game played at Tropicana Field before yesterday — Game 162 of last season — was the most memorable in Rays history. Heck, it was flat out one of the most memorable ever.
Tampa rallied from 7-0 down to the Yankees, ultimately tied the score in the ninth, won in extra innings and, thus, completed an improbable late wild-card run. So poignant was the event the Rays memorialized where Evan Longoria’s 12th-inning, game-winning homer fell by creating the “162 Landing” just inside the left-field foul pole.
And they pretty much built the entirety of their Opening Day pregame festivities around re-living the drama and the joy. They, after all, do not have 27 championships from which to draw.
But, of course, the thing about that game is the Yankees weren’t really the Yankees. They had already clinched the AL East and played a bit of a makeshift lineup and pulled starters throughout. When Dan Johnson homered to tie the score, 7-7, with two out and two strikes in the ninth, Cory Wade was trying to earn the save. And it was Scott Proctor who served up Longoria’s long ball.
In other words, Mariano Rivera had as much to do with 2011 Game 162 as Goose Gossage or Sparky Lyle.
That was not the case yesterday: 2012, Game 1.
In a passion-filled, strategy-heavy game managers Joe Girardi and Joe Maddon waged as if it were October not April, the Yankees seemingly had the ultimate weapon to bring order to the whole nutty affair.
It is not just that Girardi could put away his binder and go to Mariano Rivera with a one-run lead in the ninth. It was that he could go to Rivera against the Rays in a save situation. Which for the Yankees has fallen neatly somewhere after death and taxes as a sure thing.
Sixty of Rivera’s 603 saves are against Tampa Bay. But, and more startling, is he has just blown just one opportunity against Tampa. Yes, he was 60-for-61. The only blown save had come on Aug. 16, 2005, when the franchise was still the Devil Rays and a laughingstock. Eduardo Perez homered off Rivera to produce that blown save. Perez is a hitting coach these days for the Marlins.
When Girardi summoned a reliever with a 6-5 lead in the ninth to try to get the Yanks to 1-0 on the season, it was not Wade or Proctor who entered. It was the greatest ever giving up two runs in the ninth, getting beat around the park pretty good in the process. There were the Rays, 7-6 winners, piling upon each other in joy on April 6, 2012 with about the same euphoria that they had on Sept. 29, 2011.
“We’re used to seeing [Rivera] do it [save the game],” Girardi said. “He’s done it over 600 times. So when he doesn’t do it, you are a little shocked.”
In many ways, the Yankees were let down by their pitching strengths. CC Sabathia gave up a grand slam to Carlos Pena in the first and Rivera yielded a 390-foot bases-loaded “single” off the wall in left-center, again to Pena, to deliver the second of two runs in the ninth.
“You are talking about the best guy who has ever done what he does, so that is in your mind when you walk to the plate,” said Pena, who had been 0-for-11 with three strikeouts off Rivera. “Then you are looking at two strikes [a 1-2 count] and I’ve never sniffed it against him before. So to get the ball on the bat against a guy like that is just gratifying. And the fact it won a game makes even more special.”
Pena had been 4-for-35 with 19 strikeouts against Sabathia when Girardi walked the .229-career-hitting Sean Rodriguez to load the bases in the first. But the Yankees rallied against James Shields with two runs in the second and four in the third, three coming from a homer by Raul Ibanez. But that was the only RBI hit with a runner in scoring position the Yankees had all game in 11 at-bats.
They blew loads of chances. But once Rivera entered, they could not have thought he would blow the game. But his pitches were up. Desmond Jennings lined a 1-2 pitch to center for a single. Ben Zobrist tripled to tie the score. Girardi ordered the bases loaded before Rivera fanned Rodriguez. Pena was down 1-2 when he went way over the drawn-in outfield.
“It’s my fault,” Rivera said.
Yes, unlike in Game 162 last year, Rivera pitched in Game 1 this season. Same result. Tampa Bay creating joyous memories.