Tonight's Marquee Matchup

Glub, glub, glub.

Well. THAT was something.

Much as it has been irritating to watch the Yankees lose the last three games of the season, no baseball fan can deny the amazing comeback of the Tampa Bay Rays. Congrats to those in the Tampa/St. Pete area on something that really made meaningless games (for Yankee fans) riveting to watch.

And anytime you can make Yankee fans actually feel bad for Boston Red Sox fans, you've really accomplished something. Kudos, Rays.

Also: major props to the Baltimore Orioles, who really could have phoned in, let's face it, everything since the All-Star break, and still played with intensity and skill the last month of the season. With 10 games left in the season, many baseball pundits were saying that the Sox would have a huge advantage because they had to play the Orioles seven times, while the Rays were dealing with the American League East champion Yankees. Didn't turn out that way. Nicely done, O's.

So let's assess the playoffs, which begin in about 20 minutes, as far as I can tell:

It is not an advantage for the Yankees to have drawn the Detroit Tigers for the first round, although the Texas Rangers would have been no picnic, either. Any team with Justin Verlander and even decent pitching after him (and Fister has been better than decent lately) is dangerous.

They're especially dangerous when your rotation consists of C.C. Sabathia, who has been good but not his great self since the almost-a-perfect-game rain delay in August, Ivan Nova, who has been good when he hasn't been bad lately, and Freddy Garcia, who has beaten bad teams very handily but has not been huge against good ones. And the Tigers are a good one.

The offense--including Derek Jeter and his .297 batting average for the season (quite an accomplishment, considering his first half), Alex Rodriguez and his bum knee (he couldn't even PINCH HIT in an extra-inning game?), Jesus Montero, who froze up in spring training when trying to prove something, Nick Swisher, who hasn't been hitting consistently for a month, Russell Martin, who is a very nice catcher and hits home runs sometimes, and Mark Teixiera, again nice for power but the average is way down this year--can be amazing, or it can go to sleep.

Except Robinson Cano, who hits everybody all the time.

The bullpen has been a real source of strength, but overworked lately. Get the ball to Robertson and Mo, and I'm relaxed. Anybody else, not so much.

Verlander vs. Sabathia should bring out the best in the big guy. And Verlander does occasionally lose a game. Once in a while. Sort of. So Friday night will set the tone. Brian Cashman said in an interview a few days ago that in assessing his team and the potential competition, "We could run the table and go all the way, or we could be eliminated in the first round."

He's got that right.

A Class Act

Okay, so Jorge Posada was not behind the plate, and he should have been. We'll overlook that.

There's nothing that's left to be said about Mariano Rivera that hasn't been said. He's taken an incredible physical talent and turned it into an art. He's done something that most teams would be tickled to have a guy do for three years and done it for 16. He has done it better than anyone who ever did it has done it before, and in all likelihood, better than anyone who will follow him, at least for a very, very long time.

But let's put that aside.

What's important with an artist isn't the fact of the art. It's not output. It's not the number of paintings Picasso finished, or the sheer volume of work Mozart completed. Numbers don't tell the story with true artists, and that's what Rivera is.

It's style.

Mariano Rivera is quite possibly the greatest stylist in the history of baseball. He has performed at a high level for an impossibly long time, at an impossibly advanced age now (for baseball--in life terms, he's a kid) and he has the statistics to prove it. But it's the WAY he's done it that sets him apart from everyone else.

Rivera used to be able to blow batters away. He could throw that speedball by ya, make you look like a fool, boy. But what's interesting is that since he's lost a few miles per hour on his velocity, he hasn't lost a lick of effectiveness. He's still as good now as he was then, give or take a strikeout.

And he's dominated a sport--entirely, to the point that David Ortiz of the Red Sox, a team not noted for its kindness to the Yankees, would choose Rivera as the one player in baseball history he'd sign to be on a fantasy team. First. 

But through all that, with the 602 saves and the 0.71 ERA in the postseason and the countless broken bats and the whole shmear, Rivera has never been a showboat on the mound. He doesn't do that ridiculous vulture face Papelbon does. He doesn't pump his fist and pretend to have a heart attack the way Joba Chamberlain does. He never shows up the opposition. He doesn't make them look foolish.

He just beats them. Almost every time.

Consider this, and I think it's no small point: The greatest players in the sport have their detractors. Babe Ruth? The called shot was a way of showing up the opponent. They didn't care for it. Ty Cobb? EVERYBODY hated him, even his own teammates. Joe DiMaggio? Some teammates were not huge fans; he treated Mickey Mantle very badly. 

Mariano Rivera? Try to find someone in the sport who will be willing to say something--anything--negative about him. Go ahead. Try.

Other pitchers will ask how he throws his trademark cutter, and Rivera will patiently show them. None of them can do it the way he does, anyhow. Watch him in the middle innings, and he's out in the bullpen, invariably talking to one of the younger pitchers, imparting advice. It's not talked about, but it seems obvious that David Robertson learned a bit from Rivera during those talks. Chamberlain, too. A good number of others.

Position players will sometimes hear from Rivera when they're not performing up to expectations. Not in a scolding way; Rivera will let them know what's expected of them, and why it's important to the whole team that they improve. Asked about his massive individual accomplishments, and Rivera says, "I don't talk about myself. I'm a team player." 

Maybe so. But teams are made up of individuals doing their jobs well. And there are few, if any, who do their job as well as Mariano Rivera.

That's his style.

Dear Joe Girardi:

The day is coming, and coming very soon. Possibly this week. So you need to make your decision pretty much now.

Mariano Rivera, the closer for whom no superlative actually seems sufficient, is going to set a new record for saves in a career. He's sitting at 599 today; the record is 601. A third-grader could do the math.

As inevitable as the moment is, you need to understand the drama and the importance of it. You need to remember, yes, that your team is trying to win the division title, and that even with only 17 games left to play, a 3.5-game lead is not insurmountable, so each win is important, especially when you know the Red Sox will wake up one of these days and stop losing every single game they play.

So yeah, winning the game will be important when Mo is out on the mound. He won't be there if you have a huge lead, or if the team is behind, so there's always the possibility that the game could get away, and you'll need your best defensive team on the field. But the moment will be important, and for that reason, you have to make a choice that would seem counter-intuitive.

Jorge Posada must be the catcher when Rivera sets the record.

It's something you owe to Posada, with whom you've reportedly had a rocky relationship. You have to set that aside and do what's right. It's something you owe to Rivera, who knows his core-four, big-three, best-of-seven, whatever teammate will undoubtedly not be back next year, and has a very good chance of not being on the postseason roster. It's something you owe to your team captain, who is Posada's closest friend in that clubhouse and will want his pal to have that last moment of glory. He'll want Jorge in the endlessly-replayed highlight when Mo walks off that mound.

It's something you owe to the fans, who like Russell Martin well enough, have been energized by Jesus Montero, and hope they'll warm to Austin Romine. They LOVE Posada. You need to do this.

And while it's unfair to say this to you, I'll say it anyway: It's what Joe Torre would do. Maybe that will turn your opinion against the idea and maybe it won't, but even given his shortcomings as a daily manager (you handle a bullpen with infinitely more skill), Torre understands the game beyond sabermetrics and cold wins and losses. He knows there's emotion involved. He let players manage on the last day of the season, and often chose the ones who wouldn't be back the following year--let them have some fun before they left. He managed the All-Star Game when Cal Ripken Jr. was moved from third base to shortstop on the field, without his prior knowledge, because it was the right thing to do. He'd know how to handle this very special moment.

Jorge Posada MUST be the catcher when Mariano Rivera sets the record.

Respectfully,

Jeff Cohen, Fan

Left-handed Complement

The two extra-inning losses to the Orioles over the past couple of days don't mean a whole lot of anything. Yes, winning those games would have widened the lead over the Red Sox to 4.5 games, and that would be fairly enjoyable with only 20 left to play. But winning the division is, sad to say, a secondary goal to getting into the playoffs, and it would take a catastrophe of biblical proportions to avoid that at this point.

What can be taken from these two games is sparse, but some of it is important, and the key fact is: The Boone Logan who was effective for a month or so is not the real Boone Logan, and must not be trusted with important left-handed batters in crucial--that is, playoff--games.

The Yankees called up a number of pitchers once the waiver deadline was passed. And the lefty they brought up from their well-stocked minor league system was... Aaron Laffey. Who had already been released by another club and was with the Yankees for all of a day last month.

Maybe it's me.

We already know what doesn't work. Isn't this time of the year, when the playoff spot is just about a certainty and the job at hand is getting in the best shape for the postseason you can be, the time to try out a young guy or two and see if they can catch lightning in a bottle? Does the name "Joba Chamberlain" mean anything to these guys?

If, as seems destined, the Yankees and Red Sox meet in the ALCS, and David Ortiz is up with the game on the line, how much do you not want to see Boone Logan come out of the bullpen while the Fenway faithful scream?

I don't want that a lot.

Derek Jeter, Defensive Liability

Remember when Derek Jeter was rehabbing his leg, and Eduardo Nunez was supposed to be an enormous improvement over the aging captain? Remember how ol' Noonie was going to make up for Jeter's lack of range and show us how shortstop is really supposed to be played?

I give you the 11th inning of Wednesday's game (and in fact, a bunch of other games) as evidence that such thinking was, let's say, a little off in terms of accuracy.

You hold your breath when Nunez is at short and the ball is hit to him. You never have to do that with Jeter. The captain might not get to as many grounders as the statheads think he should but you know what? When he does get to them, they become outs.

And yes, I understand that these were awful playing conditions, the ball was slick, the grass was wet and the dirt was mud. I fully realize there had been a game played until the wee hours of the morning less than a half-day before this one began. I get that everybody was really tired.

But the young guys are supposed to show the old grizzled veterans how energy and verve and youth are all assets. They're supposed to be faster and slicker. They're supposed to pick up the damn ball.

Oddly, the errors at first base ended when Mark Teixiera entered the game. A really good play was made at second, when Robinson Cano (hardly grizzled, he) came in to hit and stayed for fielding. If Derek Jeter had been at short, maybe he wouldn't have reached the ball that Nunez booted, which turned into the winning run.

But if he'd gotten to it, it would have been an out.

Go Figure

So the best performance (statistically) from a starting pitcher for the Yankees in the latest Boston series was from A.J. Burnett.

What?

Yup. Burnett, who had been a walking loss for the past two months, faced a game the Yankees needed to win--more for their own psyches than for the standings--and did what he's supposed to do. That's a sight we haven't seen for quite some time.

But let's not go crazy: Burnett lasted 5.1 innings and left with the team behind. That was partially because the Yankees were trying to set new records for stranding men on base, and partially because Burnett just couldn't resist the temptation to give up a home run to Dustin Pedroia. He did not make it through the sixth, he did not dominate, he did not "turn his season around." Not yet.

The ongoing psychodrama that is A.J. Burnett continues. You still have no idea what you're going to get the next time he steps on the mound. But despite assurances before the Boston series that "we're not going to decide based on one start," you can bet that Phil Hughes is the current favorite to transfer to the bullpen if indeed the Yankees ever do whittle their starting rotation down to the standard five.

This, too, can change with one more good start from Hughes and another lousy one from Burnett. But you're likely to hear about how Hughes has come out of the pen before, how Burnett's stuff doesn't translate well to that role, and other blind justification.

Bet that Hughes will be a reliever before this month is over, and Burnett won't.

And hey: That Jesus Montero sure can get hit by a pitch, can't he? (Just kidding--we don't know what the kid can do yet.)