It is as rare as a July blizzard or receiving a winning lottery ticket as a gift. It happens, but it’s just not that frequently that Mariano Rivera looks like Kyle Farnsworth.
“He’s that good,” Minnesota’s Jim Thome said of the Yankees closer. “You’re just battling trying to do anything you can to set up something like what happened. It just doesn’t happen a whole lot with him.”
What happened yesterday was something witnessed only three times before in Rivera’s career: He surrendered a grand slam in the eighth inning, this one to Jason Kubel, the decisive hit in the Twins’ 6-3 Stadium win over the Yankees. That blast arrived following something equally bizarre: Rivera walked Thome to force in a run, only the fourth bases-loaded walk of Rivera’s professional life.
“I don’t think you see that hardly ever,” Twins starter and winner Nick Blackburn said of Thome walking after fouling off two pitches. “I was very shocked that happened. And it’s something that’s going to be overlooked.”
Not quite. Even Kubel, the guy who delivered the first grand slam against Rivera since Bill Selby’s walk-off at Cleveland July 14, 2002, called Thome’s walk “the biggest at-bat of the game.”
Thome, coincidentally on base (after an intentional walk) for Selby’s slam (yesterday, he was removed for a pinch runner after his RBI walk), naturally chose Kubel’s blast to right as the defining moment. Thome was impressed that Kubel, after passing on a pitch low, got around on Rivera’s 1-0 trademark that when running in on lefties, usually gets yanked foul.
“It was off the plate and this time I actually kept my hands inside of it and made decent contact,” said Kubel, who helped the Twins end their streak of 12-straight losses against the Yankees. “It was a good pitch, off the plate. It wasn’t way in but it was good enough to where I don’t usually make contact.
“I didn’t think I was going to hit a home run. I just went up hoping to use my hands and get something to fall.”
It did. And it fell in a good spot according to Twins manager Ron Gardenhire.
“In the seats,” he said. “Kubes got a cutter before it cut. It doesn’t happen very often, so take pictures.”
But it never would have happened had Thome not drawn his walk by laying off a backdoor cutter that just missed.
“You’re trying to hit, you’re not looking for a walk,” Thome, who is 3-for-14 lifetime, now with seven walks, against Rivera, said before he was asked if all the experience against the closer helped with his confidence. “No not at all. That don’t help at all.”