SUDDENLY, for the first time on this July Fourth weekend, it felt like Red Sox-Yankees. It felt tense. It felt thrilling. It felt like something vital was on the line. Which it was. It was called the Yankees’ season.
Yes, there is a whole second half to play. But you sensed that if the Yanks were going to blow this game – with the ball and a lead in Mariano Rivera’s right hand – then their season might just disappear. Poof. Gone.
Here was Rivera, the master of precision, king of the ninth inning, yet he could not spot his pitches, and slowly a 2-0 lead became 2-1. And worse. It was bases loaded, none out. The Yanks already had lost the first two games of this series, were down five in the loss column to Boston, 10 to upstart Rays. Heck, they were even behind the Orioles.
These were the fourth-place Yankees about to endure their most painful loss yet. Tying run 90 feet away. Go-ahead run at second. Insurance run at first. No outs. A season on the line.
“Mo is just the greatest,” Alex Rodriguez said. “He is the one guy who can create that mess and clean it up. . . . Maybe [he would fear the worst] with anyone else on the mound. But not with Mo on the mound.”
It speaks to Rivera’s gifts that he could recalibrate in this peril. That he could essentially become the baseball James Bond: Put himself in the greatest trauma and drama, yet have the wherewithal to maneuver to safety. Pop out, pop out, strikeout. With nearly 55,000 on their feet and screaming. With perhaps a season at stake.
A switch went on and suddenly Rivera was a laser surgeon again. Each fastball moving the Yanks a little farther away from the cliff. Each fastball a little piece of hope that maybe not all is yet loss.
His 25th and final pitch overmatched Julio Lugo. Made the final 2-1. Gave Rivera his 23rd save in 23 tries. But this one should come with an asterisk. Because it felt like Rivera had saved way more than a game.
“This was a huge for us,” Joe Girardi said. “This was a big win.”
It was another day when the Yankees’ offense sent a search party out for big hits and came back mostly empty. They were 3-for-15 with men on base, scratched out just two runs.
Mike Mussina made that stand by putting together a statement to Red Sox manager Terry Francona on why the AL All-Star skipper should name him to the squad. Mussina delivered six shutout innings in which he unleashed his library of stuff – fastballs, cutters and curves, in particular. Mussina had been beat up by Boston, especially Manny Ramirez, in two April starts. But he has won 10 games since then – tied for the most in the majors – in his revival tour.
Jose Veras and Kyle Farnsworth followed with six-up, six-down set-up work, and you figured the heavy lifting was done with “Enter Sandman” on the horizon. But two batters into the ninth – a full-count single by J.D. Drew and a hit by pitch against Manny Ramirez – and Mussina watching on TV in the player’s lounge sensed trouble.
“[Rivera] was missing by a foot when usually he misses by one or two inches,” Mussina said. “This stuff does not usually happen when Mo is pitching.”
It got worse. Mike Lowell singled in a run, Kevin Youkilis was hit by a pitch and the bases were jammed.
“It was interesting,” Rivera said. “Always against the Red Sox things get interesting.”
Mussina was shifting around the lounge, trying to find a lucky spot. But the Yanks’ good luck charm has always been Rivera, in part because he dispels luck with such excellence of stuff and toughness of mind. On the mound, he mentally flushed what had occurred to that point. Closer amnesia. He had the athleticism to regain his release point, which returned familiar accuracy. The Stadium quaked as, fastball by fastball, Rivera extracted himself from this self-made crevice, performed CPR on the Yankee season.
The Rivalry, for the first time this weekend, had life and suddenly the Yanks had some Mo-mentum.