Results tagged ‘ Trevor Hoffman ’
Rivera named AL Player of the Week
The honors keep coming for Mariano Rivera. The all-time saves leader was honored Monday as the American League Player of the Week. And what a week it was.
It started with Mo getting his 602nd career save Sept. 19 at Yankee Stadium against the Twins as he surpassed Trevor Hoffman for the most career saves. Rivera made three appearances during the week and allowed no runs and one hit with one walk (intentional) and three strikeouts in three innings in chalking up two saves.
Rivera’s record-setting save occurred 15 years and 125 days after he notched his first save May 17, 1996, against the Angels. He has saved 63 more games than any other reliever since and went into Monday night’s game at St. Petersburg, Fla., with 279 more saves than any active pitcher.
At 41, Rivera has shown no signs of slowing up with a 1-2 record, 44 saves and 1.92 ERA. This year marks the 14th time in his career that Mo has made 60 or more appearances in a season. He reached the 40-save plateau for the eighth time and became the first 40-year-old to do so.
Mo honored for breaking saves record
Mariano Rivera usually likes to avoid being in the spotlight except when on the mound trying to save a game, but he could not avoid it Sunday. The Yankees staged a pregame ceremony before the first game of a dual-admission doubleheader against the Red Sox at Yankee Stadium to pay tribute to the closer’s setting the major league record for saves last week.
The Yankees organization commissioned a Waterford Crystal’s firefighter’s helmet with No. 602, the number that broke the previous mark of 601 saves by Trevor Hoffman, as well as an image of Rivera.
Jorge Posada, the catcher for so many of those saves, presented Rivera on behalf of his teammates a Fire Department of New York helmet, also bearing No. 602. Posada also assisted in unveiling a matted collage featuring 15 of Mo’s Topps bubble gum baseball cards and the title, “Best Ever.”
Steiner Sports gave Rivera a 602 saves collage and a check for $25,000 to the Mariano Rivera Foundation, which is helping with the restoration of the North Avenue Church in New Rochelle.
Fans wanted the game to go to Mo
Be honest, Yankees fans. Weren’t you rooting against them in the bottom of the eighth inning Monday?
A lot of people in the Yankee Stadium crowd of 40,045 were cheering with each out and let up a roar when Nick Swisher grounded into a double play. They had their eye on the bullpen where Mariano Rivera was getting ready to come into the game to the familiar sounds of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”
The Yankees were ahead, 6-4. If they scored two or more runs, Rivera would have lost the save situation. They had two runners on base in the eighth. If Swisher had put one in the seats, Mo would have had to sit down, and who know how loudly Swish would have booed as he rounded the bases.
The weird thing is that Rivera could never root against his own team. Winning games matters more to him than anything. The more runs the Yankees score the more he likes it. Yet even he understood why everybody was so excited on a day that when a game was not supposed to be played at the Stadium.
Rivera came through and gave those who attended Monday’s rainout makeup game against the Twins a slice of history. With his usual efficiency, Rivera pitched a 1-2-3 ninth inning finishing it off with a called third strike with his patented cutter to Minnesota rookie first baseman Chris Parmelee for his 602nd career save.
That makes it official. Rivera is the greatest relief pitcher of all time, which we already knew. He surpassed Trevor Hoffman in career saves that removes any doubts. Not included in that number are the 42 additional saves Rivera has chalked up in postseason play, 42 and counting, just as he has 602 regular-season saves and counting. There are 10 games left on the Yanks’ schedule, and they are going to postseason play again, giving Rivera plenty of opportunities to add to his totals.
You could tell Mo really liked this one. As cool as he was after saves Nos. 600 and 601, this one was different. He could not hide his joy. His wide, toothy smile that he reserves for teammates when they do something special, like when Derek Jeter got his 3,000th hit July 9, was evident as he stood on the mound and accepted congratulations from Jeter, catcher Russell Martin, his long-time previous catcher Jorge Posada, manager Joe Girardi, trainer Gene Monahan and the rest of the Yankees.
Posada told Mo to go back on the mount to acknowledge the cheers of the fans who were clearly rooting for this important Yankee at that point. His wife and sons were in the crowd as well for this big day for their family.
“It felt strange,” Rivera said. “Nobody in front of me, nobody behind me; I never had that before.”
I was thinking Monday about the first time I became aware of Rivera. It was 1993. I was sitting in the Stadium office of then manager Buck Showalter. The Yankees weren’t very good in those days, so you spent more time looking at what was going on down in the minors. Mark Connor, then the Yankees pitching coach, showed me a statistics sheet with Rivera’s figures at Class A Greensboro underlined.
“Keep your eye on this kid,” Mark said. “He’s going to have to put on some weight, but all he does is throw strikes, and he’s coming off elbow surgery.”
From that point on, I regularly checked Rivera’s record when he was in the minors. He showed signs of what was to come with outstanding relief work in the American League Division Series against the Mariners in 1995. The next season, he was a legitimate AL Most Valuable Player candidate for his setup work for closer John Wetteland. Mo finished 12th in the voting, which was the highest ranking of any Yankees player that year, the first time in MVP voting history that a championship team did not have a player finish in the top 10.
I remember a player coming up to me the day after Rivera blew that save in Game 4 of the 1997 ALDS at Cleveland on the eighth-inning home run by Sandy Alomar Jr. Rivera had been calm after the game, reiterating that he would have thrown the same pitch but with different location.
“Wasn’t the closer a little too blasé about what happened yesterday?” the player asked me. “Some of the guys commented on that last night.”
The following spring, I mentioned to Goose Gossage what the player had said about Rivera.
“Whoever that guy was doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Goose said. “That is exactly the attitude a closer has to have. Don’t second-guess yourself and move on to the next game.”
Rivera has done that over and over. I was on the official scoring crew for the 1999 World Series and was on the committee that voted for the MVP, which was Rivera. Mo came over to me during spring training the next season and said, “I was told you were one of the World Series MVP voters,” he said. “I wanted to thank you for your support.”
Rivera has been saying all season that 602 is merely a number and that it won’t change him. Good. It would be unfathomable for Mariano Rivera to be anything but what he is, baseball’s ultimate class act.
Mo will go for save No. 602 in final homestand
The Yankees wheezed their way to the end of a 4-city, 11-day, 10-game trip through Baltimore, Anaheim, Seattle and Toronto and were lifeless in Sunday’s 3-0 loss to the Blue Jays at Rogers Centre. The Yanks were 4-6 on the arduous trip with four walk-off losses but had a couple of highlights with Mariano Rivera earning career saves Nos. 600 and 601 to tie Trevor Hoffman’s major-league record.
Mo can try to make the record his own at Yankee Stadium where the Yankees will play eight games over the next seven days on the last regular-season homestand of the season. To say it will be good to get home is a major understatement.
With the Rays continuing to encroach on the Red Sox’ lead in the wild-card race and pushing Boston 4 ½ games behind the Yankees in the American League East, manager Joe Girardi had the opportunity to rest some players Sunday, which he did by giving three regulars the day off. Derek Jeter, Curtis Granderson and Mark Teixeira weren’t even used in pinch-hit situations as the Yankees went down meekly to Brandon Morrow, who pitched eighth brilliant innings, and Frank Francisco, who worked the ninth for his 16th save.
Against Morrow, the Yankees scratched out only four hits – three of them in the infield – and a walk while striking out eight times. Eduardo Nunez, who played second base as Robinson Cano was the designated hitter, had three hits, including a double off Francisco in the ninth, but was thrown out on the bases trying to stretch his second hit into a double. Nunez was the only one of the Yankees to get to second base, which he did twice.
Freddy Garcia had his third straight poor outing and was undone by two home runs from Adam Lind, who had a monster series (6-for-12, 2 doubles, 2 home runs, 5 RBI, 3 runs). Garcia did not get through the fifth inning. He has allowed 15 earned runs and 21 hits, including six homers, in 12 1/3 innings (10.95 ERA) over his past three starts in which his season ERA has swollen from 3.09 to 3.77.
Garcia’s early exit allowed Girardi the chances to see some relievers who are auditioning for postseason roster spots. The most impressive was lefthander Raul Valdes, who began the year with the Cardinals and was claimed off waivers by the Yankees Aug. 16 and pitched at Double A Trenton. He entered the game in the sixth with one out, the bases full and Lind at bat. Valdes got him looking at a third strike and retired Edwin Encarnacion on a ground ball to end the threat. It was one bright spot in a gloomy day for the Yankees.
CC can’t hold lead in bid for 20th victory
No 20th victory for CC Sabathia, no record-tying save for Mariano Rivera, and no satisfaction in another one-run game. For the second straight game, the Yankees suffered a last at-bat loss on a game-winning hit off Cory Wade, who had been one of the great additions to the staff this year.
Two nights after giving up a 12th-inning, walk-off home run to the Mariners’ Luis Rodriguez at Seattle, Wade allowed a walk-off single to former Yankees catcher Jose Molina in the bottom of the ninth inning in a 5-4 loss at Toronto. Molina was the only batter Wade faced. The loss was charged to Boone Logan, who got into immediate trouble by yielding a leadoff double to Adam Lind, a left-handed hitter.
Logan has been the main – and for a good part of the season the only – lefthander out of the bullpen for the Yankees, but his success rate against left-handed hitters has not been great. Lefties are batting .268 with 7 doubles, 1 triple and 4 homers in 97 at-bats against Logan, who has given up five hits to the past seven lefty hitters he has faced. He has done better against right-handed hitters, who are batting .246 with 4 extra-base hits, all doubles, in 57 at-bats.
But this game can’t be hung solely on the pen. CC Sabathia couldn’t hang on to a two-run lead provided by Eric Chavez, who started at third base instead of thumb-hurting Alex Rodriguez, who may play Saturday. Chavez’s two-out, two-run home run in the fourth gave Sabathia a 3-1 spread to work with, but the lefthander lost it an inning later when he walked two batters to fill the bases and gave up a three-run double to Lind. The Yankees were able to tie the score to get CC off the hook, but that 20th victory will have to wait at least four more days.
Sabathia had another laborious outing as he threw 120 pitches but failed to complete six innings. Over his past four starts, CC has thrown 478 pitches, and that covers only 25 innings. The Blue Jays repeatedly let him off the hook. They stranded 14 runners, including nine against Sabathia.
Yankees bats also went silent against Toronto’s relief corps. After Nick Swisher tied the score at 4 with a two-out single in the sixth, the Yankees made 10 consecutive outs. They could not push across that run that would give Rivera a chance for his 601st save to tie Trevor Hofffman’s career record.
Rafael Soriano struck out the side in the seventh, and David Robertson pulled another Houdini act by getting himself in trouble by loading the bases in the eighth only to come away unharmed.
The Yankees are having a terrific season with the best record in the American League and a 3 ½-game lead over the Red Sox in their division, but one disturbing aspect is their record in one-run games, which are becoming more frequent of late. Their past three games, eight of 11 and nine of 14 have been decided by one run. Six of the eight games on this trip have been one-run games. The Yankees are 3-3 in those games but 20-23 overall this season, including 8-14 on the road.
It is a trend in need of reversal.
Mo getting to 600 makes it a magic number
Oh, those nice round numbers in baseball – 3,000 hits, 500 home runs, 300 victories, 3,000 strikeouts.
But 600 saves?
It remains to be seen whether the 600-save plateau for relief pitchers will ever be viewed as the equivalent of 300 victories for a starter. The save statistic have always been a debated issue, but somehow I feel that now that Mariano Rivera has hit that number, 600 will forever be considered a major milestone in the game.
Mo is only the second pitcher to get there. The other, Trevor Hoffman, is merely one save ahead of him. Not to take anything away from Hoffman, but the 600-saves achievement became truly legitimized Tuesday night when Rivera got his 41st save in his 41st year on this planet preserving a 3-2 victory for the Yankees and A.J. Burnett, who desperately needed a victory to keep his slim hold on a rotation position.
Rivera’s 600th career save came in a game in which he did record the final out. Ichiro Suzuki tried to steal second base with two out and was cut down by Russell Martin’s throw with the tag applied by Derek Jeter. How appropriate. Jeter has been on the field for nearly all 600 of those saves. The only thing that would have completed the picture was if Jorge Posada had been the catcher.
Rivera really didn’t need to get to 600 saves to be considered the greatest relief pitcher of all time. Remember, that total does not include the 42 saves he notched in postseason play, which is a bit like when Babe Ruth retired with 714 career home runs, not including the 15 he hit in the World Series.
But baseball fans love round numbers. Ask Al Kaline, who finished his career with 399 home runs. Mickey Mantle always said his greatest disappointment was that his career batting average fell below .300 at .298. Early Wynn took forever to get his 300th career victory, but there was no way he could walk away from the game without getting there.
Rivera took the congratulations from his teammates in his usual, cool manner. Just like Jeter, Mo is all about winning, and the most important thing to him about his saves total is that it means he was a part of 600 Yankees victories.
Somewhat obscured by the way the game ended was the start by Burnett, who had a devastating curve that helped him to 11 strikeouts in six innings. Oh, sure, A.J. had his usual control issues (two wild pitches, two hit batters), but he limited the Mariners to two runs and four hits and won for only the second time in 13 starts since June 29. In his previous four starts, Burnett was 0-2 with an 11.00 ERA, so this was a victory he needed and has reason to savor. And years from now he can always say he was the winning pitcher in the game that Rivera scored his 600th save.
The Yankees’ offense was a bit spotty. One of their runs scored on a wild pitch. Robinson Cano drove in the other two with his 26th home run and a fielder’s choice to run his RBI total to 111, tying Curtis Granderson for the team lead and continuing to make the American League Most Valuable Player situation a two-man race for the Yankees.
But in the end, it was the end that was the story of the game as a player got to a magic number. The save has only been an official statistic since 1969, which was the year Mariano Rivera was born. There is some mystical symmetry to that.
Mo gets to 1,000
A Yankee Stadium crowd of 43,201 on a sun-splashed afternoon not only got to see the Yankees win a game against the Blue Jays but also to watch Mariano Rivera step into another level of baseball history. In what was not a save situation but an opportunity to get in some work for the first time in a week, Rivera made the 1,000th appearance of his major-league career and pitched a shutout ninth inning.
Rivera became the 15th pitcher to reach four figures in games – all are pitchers, primarily relievers – but the first to do so with just one team, an extraordinary accomplishment in the free agency era of player movement. His reaction to the milestone was similar to so many of his other reactions – tinged with humility.
“It’s a blessing,” he said. “I mean, when I first started, something like this never crossed my mind. I was just happy to be in the big leagues. This is special, especially to do it with one team, the Yankees, and be able to play with so many great players. They showed a lot of faith in me in the early days. I thank God for his help and the support of my wife and family.”
Mo was quick to point out that he lost the first game he ever pitched for the Yankees, a start May 23 at Anaheim when he gave up five runs and eight hits in 3 1/3 innings of a 10-0 loss. He also mentioned that he blew two saves in his first week as the team’s closer in 1997, the year after he had been an outstanding setup reliever for John Wetteland, whose pursuit of free agency opened the door for Rivera to begin a run as the greatest closer in baseball.
The Yankees’ catcher in those years was Joe Girardi, now the manager who brought Rivera into Wednesday’s game.
“I reflect on when I first came here in 1996 and caught him in spring training.” Girardi said. “I remember thinking, ‘Who is this kid?’ His stuff was excellent. He threw 97 [mph] and put the ball where he wanted it. He elevated. I was a National Leaguer. I had never heard of him, but I knew this kid was something special. Even before he became the closer, he was special. In those days, if you didn’t get to us by the sixth inning, the game was over.”
Rivera entered games in the seventh inning in 1996. A year later, he took over the ninth and has made that inning his ever since, to the point that when he does blow a save as he did last week at Baltimore it is headline news. Closing relievers are like housekeepers; nobody notices your work unless you don’t do it.
“I was surprised,” Rivera said about being named the Yankees’ closer in ’97. “We had just won the World Series. It was a lot of responsibility, but I took it as a challenge. You have to be proud of what you do.”
Of the other 14 1,000-game pitchers, four have connections with the Yankees, including the all-time leader, Jesse Orosco, who appeared in 1,252 games over four decades and 24 seasons. His best seasons were with the Mets in the 1980s, and Orosco was reunited with former manager Joe Torre with the Yankees in 2003, the lefthander’s final season in the majors.
Second to Orosco on the list is another lefthander, Mike Stanton, with 1,178 games. Stanton was an integral part of the Yanks’ bullpen from 1997 through 2002 and a portion of the 2005 season. Lee Smith, who held the saves record before Trevor Hoffman broke it, is tied with Jose Mesa for 10th place on the list with 1,022 games, eight of which were with the Yankees at the tail end of the 1993 season.
The most prominent former Yankees reliever on the list is Goose Gossage, who was elected to the Hall of Fame in 2008. Goose was the Yankees’ closer from 1978 through ’83 and came back to pitch for them briefly (11 games) in 1989. He ranks 14th with 1,002 games.
What those who pitched for the Yankees save Rivera have in common with nearly everyone else on the list is that they wore quite a few different uniforms. Orosco and Gossage pitched for nine teams apiece, Stanton and Smith eight each.
The least traveled 1,000-game pitchers prior to Rivera were John Franco, Kent Tekulve and Hoffman, each of whom who played for only three teams. Franco is third on the list with 1,119 games, Tekulve eighth with 1,050 and Hoffman ninth with 1,035.
The other pitchers to appear in more than 1,000 games with the number of their teams in parentheses were fourth-place Dennis Eckersley (5) with 1,071 games; fifth-place Hoyt Wilhelm (9) with 1,090; sixth-place Dan Plesac (6) with 1,064; seventh-place Mike Timlin (6) with 1,058; 10th-place Mesa (8) with 1,022, tied with Smith; 12th-place Roberto Hernandez (10) with 1,010 and 13th-place Mike Jackson (9) with 1,005.
Eckersley, Wilhelm and Gossage are the only Hall of Famers on the 1,000-game list. Wilhelm was elected in 1985 and Eckersley in 2004. Hoffman retired this year and won’t be eligible for the ballot until 2016. Rivera, of course, is still active – very much so.
Jack O'Connell
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