TAMPA – Chien-Ming Wang and Phil Hughes are each attempting to master a changeup, and Joba Chamberlain is toying with a two-seamer. This is the tinkering time of year, pitchers working to expand their repertoire or recreate their deliveries.
Mariano Rivera, meanwhile, is working on being Mariano Rivera: The greatest one-trick pony ever. Wind-up him, put him on the mound, watch him excel. One cutter after another. He hardly throws all offseason. No big deal. He is like the great hitter who can roll out of bed and hit line drives. Rivera can awaken and knock a gnat off a pencil tip with his cutter from 60 feet, six inches.
“It must drive hitters crazy to know what it is coming, know what is coming and still not get the barrel of the bat on it,” Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland said.
Rivera worked on his changeup all of last spring and then, according to the recently published Bill James Goldmine 2008, threw one changeup last year. One. He threw a larger percentage of fastballs (99 percent) than any pitcher who worked either 50 games or 100 innings. The next highest total was 86 percent.
Rivera does not kill softly. He throws almost all fastballs. He will use a two-seam fastball to work away from a lefty or freeze a righty through the front door. But roughly three-quarters of his offerings are cut fastballs, a pitch Toronto outfielder Matt Stairs describes thusly: “It is a lane changer. It looks good about halfway to the plate. Then it changes lanes. Actually, it is like a bowling ball changing lanes.”
“It is unbelievable,” Mets VP of scouting Tony Bernazard said of Rivera’s ability to thrive with essentially one pitch. “The league always gets you. This guy has been pitching since 1996 and the league has not been able to get Mariano Rivera. He is one of the most amazing stories and talents in major league baseball.”
He is back playing the trick. There was Wang yesterday enlarging his arsenal by blending more splits and changeups to complement his signature sinker. And there was Rivera the night before, same Tradition Field mound, same man as always. He threw 13 pitches, all fastballs against the Reds. He worked both sides of the plate. He used two seamers and cutters. But it was hard, hard, hard and – familiarly – 1-2-3.
“At-bats against him are just painful,” said Stairs, 2-for-14 lifetime off Rivera with neither an extra-base hit nor a walk. “And he is smart. You move off the plate to try to hit the cutter (as a lefty) and he will follow you further in, further in, and then backdoor a cutter on the outside corner. He works great with (Jorge) Posada. They read hitters well.”
So why can Rivera do what most pitchers can’t, live at basically one speed. It starts with his no-frills, classic delivery. There are no extraneous movements to go awry. He is a great athlete, so he repeats his motion seamlessly.
The smooth elegance of his delivery before the lightning of the pitch creates deception out of his hand. He throws the cutter at better than 90 mph, a speed not often seen with that pitch. He throws it with utter conviction, so that nerves don’t jostle the movement. He is completely unfazed by the magnitude of the moment, which also prevents deviation in the result.
“Mo is about late movement and location,” Joe Girardi said.
How long can Rivera live in the fast lane? He already has gone beyond the normal expiration date for closers. Yet the Yankees invested the largest per annum deal ever for a reliever to retain Rivera, $15 million annually for three more years. He is 38 now, yet the only thing he is doing slowly is building toward the season. He goes at his pace, knowing what he needs to do to excel.
So far he has rolled out of bed, faced six hitters in spring, and got them all out. It is one speed, but it is hardly ever over the middle and it is to each extreme of the strike zone.
“Yeah, they know what is coming,” Posada said. “But it is hard to hit because (Rivera) puts it exactly where he wants.”