ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Mariano Rivera ran a brush across a bald head that minutes earlier supported symbolic goat horns.
Now, baseball’s all-time save leader turned to face the questions as to how he turned a one-run Yankees lead into a 7-6 Opening-Day loss to the Rays in front of a sold-out crowd of 34,078 at Tropicana Field.
“You don’t want to start the season that way, but thank God it’s one game,’’ Rivera said of the ninth-inning flush job that started with Desmond Jennings’ leadoff single and ended with Carlos Pena’s one-out, bases loaded single off the wall in left-center while the Yankees played with two outfielders and five infielders.
After CC Sabathia gave up a grand slam to Pena in the first, the Yankees rebounded to take a 6-4 lead in the third when Raul Ibanez clubbed a three-run homer off James Shields to hike his RBI total to four. Evan Longoria’s solo homer in the third cut the Yankees’ lead to 6-5 and that’s the way it stayed until the home ninth.
Rafael Soriano worked a scoreless seventh and David Robertson pitched out of trouble in the eighth. Now, it was Rivera’s turn to hike the save record to 604 and give the Yankees a positive feeling to start the season.
But a 1-2 cutter to Jennings was up, and he stroked it to center. Ben Zobrist tripled into right-center to plate Jennings and tie the score, 6-6. Intentional walks to Longoria and Luke Scott loaded the bases. Manager Joe Girardi inserted Eduardo Nunez as the fifth infielder and stationed him in front of second base with the other infielders playing in.
Ahead of Pena, 1-2, Rivera watched the left-handed hitter loft a ball over a racing Brett Gardner’s head for the game-winner.
Of the three pitches that hurt Rivera, the first one was the most painful.
“It was up, maybe a strike but I don’t want the ball there,’’ Rivera said of the pitch to the left-handed hitting Jennings. “Those things are going to happen. Hopefully it won’t happen again.’’
Watching Rivera flush a save is rare enough. Against the Rays it’s even more surprising. In 62 chances he has saved 60.
“He has been so good for so long we have been blessed,’’ said Girardi, who believed the pitch to Jennings cut too much. “You see him blow one today and it’s shocking.’’
Of course, it wasn’t all Rivera’s fault. Plagued by a misbehaving fastball early, Sabathia gave up five runs, eight hits and walked three (one intentional) in six innings.
The Yankees hitters, who spanked Shields for six runs and nine hits in five innings, went 2-for-11 with runners in scoring position, stranded a dozen runners and left the bases loaded three times.
Asked what was more gratifying, hitting a grand slam off Sabathia, who he was 4-for-35 against with 19 strikeouts at the time, or getting a game-winner off Rivera, Pena said, “Rivera, that guy has been unbelievable.’’
He was again yesterday but in a negative way. At 42, it’s possible Rivera has worked his last Opening Day and next April the Yankees will call for somebody else to protect a one-run lead. Or Rivera will return and take the ball when called.
“It’s one of those things, I am sure Mo will bounce back,’’ Sabathia said.
The odds say he will, but the odds screamed that yesterday.