Mariano Rivera was part of the ceremony to throw out the first pitch Monday and Shawn Kelley delivered the last. The difference was 651 saves and welcome to the brave new world of the Yankees.
This season might be about Derek Jeter, and the home opener certainly had him as man of the hour, preordained star of the show. But Jeter is actually playing this season. Rivera is not. And Jeter has been the strongest advocate so far demanding that the games — not his farewell tour — are the priority. And the games just got trickier for the Yankees.
For as we all should know by now, baseball seasons will trash all scripts, follow their own course. Once Joe Girardi revealed a few minutes after Yankees 4, Orioles 2 that David Robertson had a Grade 1 groin strain and was headed to the DL, Jeter suddenly was a co-star along with — of all people — Kelley and Adam Warren and anyone else who might be helping the Yanks get the final outs of games for a few weeks. It was as if George Clooney and Will Arnett were co-equals on a red carpet.
Yes, a baseball season is a quirky devil.
“Hopefully, we will not fall off without our best reliever,” Kelley said.
He was talking Robertson, not Rivera, who had spent most of the previous two decades as the Yankees’ best reliever, if not their best pitcher overall, if not their most valuable player. An entire offseason and spring training was laded with analyzing how Robertson would handle the baton pass and, one week into the regular season, we need a rewrite.
Don’t adjust your newspaper if you are experiencing déjà vu. Robertson lasted one week, two save opportunities and three overall appearances as the closer in May 2012 when Rivera went down with a torn-up knee. This is the same scorecard as last time — Robertson injuring himself Sunday in Toronto in his third appearance and second save opportunity of this season. He felt a grabbing more in his hip than his groin, but an MRI exam revealed the strain, which left the righty saying: “It is definitely frustrating. It seems like something always happens to me.”
But when it happened last time, the Yanks had the most expensive setup man in history, Rafael Soriano, available to climb from seventh-inning afterthought to closer responsibilities. Soriano had led the AL in saves in 2010 and had 90 for his career.
Now, here is Kelley pushed to the left lane and asked to accelerate. He bypassed Joba Chamberlain, among others, to gain seventh-inning detail last year and already was being asked to replace Robertson in the eighth. He not only had zero career saves at the start of the home opener, he said he had zero opportunities. He went 1-2-3 in the ninth, admitted he didn’t remember a thing from it and explained afterward: ”It’s good I didn’t blow it. [Rivera] was here. He would have been mad at me.”
There really is nothing to be angry at with the entire bullpen after a week. The Yankees spent a ton of dough to fix their lineup and, so far, the high-priced sluggers have been deflated. Little was spent on the pen, outside of $7 million for two years on Matt Thornton. The Yanks decided to see if mainly a cast of minor league starters could handle the setup work. There have been some glitches, with David Phelps having an early homer penchant and Dellin Betances showing how quickly his delivery could go awry.
Mostly, though, so far, so good with no one being more eye-opening than Warren. Among his teammates, he is known as “Rocket,” a nickname he was given at A-ball because his broad shoulders and simple delivery had a Clemensian touch. After an inauspicious emergency start in 2012, Warren was a valuable but mostly low-leverage pen piece last year.
This season, however, he pitched well in the spring fifth-starter competition and — small sample-size alert — has pelted the strike zone consistently with 92- to 95-mph heat as a reliever, a changeup that neutralizes lefties and a good slider. In three appearances, he has not allowed a hit and his lone base runner came when he walked David Lough leading off the eighth.
But, with each Oriole as the tying run, he induced a flyout from Nick Markakis, whiffed Adam Jones with a 95-mph missile and struck out Chris Davis looking with a freeze-anybody backdoor slider. Thus, an eighth-inning man ascended.
“There is an opportunity here to step up,” Warren said. “This opens an opportunity for us and gives us a chance to prove ourselves.”
For the next two weeks, at least, a frustrated Robertson sits, and relievers such as Kelley and Warren get a chance to be more vital members of this Yankees season and Jeter’s farewell tour.