Closing Act Calls for Illusionist

When last seen, Mariano Rivera was welcoming visitors to his familiar October residence.

Standing on the mound at Yankee Stadium on Monday night, in the middle of another celebration, Rivera was embraced by catcher Jorge Posada and engulfed by all of the New York Yankees after using his devastating cut fastball--which is three pitches in one--to get the final three outs of the 12-3 Game 5 victory over the Seattle Mariners, wrapping up the Yankees’ 38th American League pennant and fourth straight.

Although the nine-run disparity did not qualify it as a save, Rivera enhanced his unparalleled postseason statistics--”He rises to another level,” pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre said--and got in a final inning of work in preparation for Saturday’s start of a World Series in which he could be the decisive difference between the Yankees and Arizona Diamondbacks.

The Diamondbacks will throw their dynamite duo of Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson at the Yankees as often as possible, but they can’t match the Yankee bullpen and have nothing comparable to Rivera, the 31-year-old Panamanian closer. Manager Joe Torre says of him, “When we have a lead, I can stop managing after the eighth inning.”

Torre also says, “For me, he’s just like a regular player. You can look at him like a Bernie Williams or Derek Jeter because he’s been a part of everything we’ve done. He’s just so efficient and businesslike. I don’t remember anyone being like him.”

The Yankees have won four of the last five World Series and the cool, calm Rivera has provided the last word since replacing John Wetteland as the closer in 1996.

Under the illusion that he is a one-pitch pitcher, Rivera has appeared in 48 postseason games with a microscopic earned-run average of 0.74. He has a 5-0 postseason record and has the most saves, having registered 23 in succession--he had a record 331/3 consecutive scoreless innings at one point--since Sandy Alomar hit a decisive home run off him in Game 4 of the 1997 division series with the Cleveland Indians.

This year, after setting a Yankee record with 50 saves during the regular season, joining Bobby Thigpen and Dennis Eckersley as the only closers to have reached that number, Rivera has appeared in seven of 10 playoff games, emerging with four saves and a 1-0 record. He has held opposing hitters to a .180 batting average, and given up one run in 91/3 innings.

Of his postseason saves streak, Rivera said, “I tell you what, I don’t think about it. I just go there and try to do my best I can that night. I thank the good Lord for the opportunities that I’ve been getting, and I’ve been getting the job done, so I don’t think about it. I just go and do it.”

Rivera is so reliable under the most intense pressure that a veteran Atlanta Braves’ scout said, “He’s the most impressive closer I’ve ever seen and probably the easiest to scout--cut fastball, cut fastball, cut fastball.”

Well, yes and no.

There is some validity to the impression that he has become one of the best at what he does throwing only one pitch, a cut fastball, but he throws three varieties of it--a four-seam that bores in on left-handed batters, a two-seam that bores in on right-handed batters and a straight fastball that isn’t really straight because it tends to rise.

“I guarantee that if he threw only one pitch, the hitters would adjust and hit him very well,” Stottlemyre said. “What sets Mariano apart is that he gets great movement and knows where it’s going. He’s not going to come in and blow you away, but he has a plan, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody throw as hard with that movement.

“Generally, the more velocity a pitcher attempts to generate, the more movement he loses, but Mariano has a live arm and has learned a lot about himself and how to make the ball move--and it’s all late movement.

“I mean, he’s like a pitcher throwing a forkball. The hitter sees it out of the pitcher’s hand thinking it’s a straight fastball, then it’s not there. I’ve really never had anyone like him. He’s been successful for five years without having to make any major changes, only some minor adjustments.”

Said Posada, suppressing a laugh, “He’s a guy who throws 93-96 mph with about a foot of movement. The hitter sees it, then he doesn’t.”

It’s the combination of velocity, movement and location that makes Rivera so tough, and it’s the four-seam that sets him apart.

His right-handed effectiveness against left-handed batters allows Torre to use him against any hitter in any situation, and the Diamondbacks have several key left-handed batters, among them Luis Gonzalez, Steve Finley and Mark Grace.

Rivera held left-handed batters to a .187 average with no home runs this year, while right-handers hit .229 with five home runs. The four-seam cuts down left-handers with such ferocity that Rivera is the king of broken bats. He broke 44 during the regular season, and it’s been suggested that Louisville Slugger should reward him with a contract for boosting its business.

In a memorable moment during the last inning of the last World Series game with the Atlanta Braves in 1999, the left-handed hitting Ryan Klesko broke three bats in one at-bat against Rivera and later said, “I probably would have had a better chance if I’d gone up without one.”

During the recent league championship series, Seattle’s switch-hitting Stan Javier shook his head and said, “You go up there knowing he’s going to throw you a fastball and you still can’t hit it. He’s the only pitcher in baseball you can say that about, and he’s one of the reasons I’m retiring.”

Said Stottlemyre, “Mariano is not a trickster and he’s not invincible. Everybody who plays the game is going to get beat around at times, but his beatings are fewer and farther apart than most, and virtually never in the postseason.

“He’s also very low maintenance. If he’s not in a game for a couple days, he’ll come to me and say, ‘Get me in. I need the work.’ In five years I can count on one hand the times he’s not been available, but he’s never been the one to come and say, ‘I can’t pitch today.’ Joe and I sense when he’d be helped by missing a day.”

In addition, Stottlemyre said, Rivera’s apprenticeship as a two-or three-inning set-up man for Wetteland stripped him of the mentality that he is now a one-inning closer. Rivera occasionally goes more than one inning, and he has never lost his composure on the mound, Stottlemyre said, although he does get upset on those few occasions when he’s blown a colleague’s lead.

A couple of years ago, David Cone, then a Yankee, reflected on the composure with which Rivera and fellow Panamanian Ramiro Mendoza go about their jobs and asked Rivera, “What’s in the water down there? You guys are so cool.”

Rivera doesn’t think it’s the water. He credits his character and composure to his father, Mariano, who had good days and bad supporting his family of five as a fisherman. The young Mariano grew up using a cardboard glove, often throwing rocks, shells and coconuts when a baseball wasn’t available.

“A gift of God,” he said of the ability that prompted scout Herb Raybourn to sign him in 1990.

Rivera’s faith, manifested in the clubhouse by his participation in chapel services and reading of the Bible at his locker, also had Rivera contemplating retirement after the 2003 season to become an evangelical minister.

Rivera believes God talked to him during a 1996 game, telling him, “I am the reason you are here,” but he has since decided to pitch as long as he can, making the most of God’s gift and “the blessing of pitching for the best team in the best city.”

A cynic might suggest that the four-year, $39.9-million contract that Rivera signed before the 2001 season factored into that blessing, but Rivera has used some of that money to build a church in his hometown and to supply baseball equipment to young Panamanians. He also says he can minister to others while continuing to pitch.

The contract allows him to become a free agent after next season, but Rivera would have to return half of his $8-million signing bonus and he’s not going to find a better or more successful environment in which to throw his cut fastballs. He can be virtually certain that when the games are on the line in October, he’ll be on the mound at Yankee Stadium, his home away from home.

WORLD SERIES

New York Yankees vs.

Arizona Diamondbacks

Game 1, Saturday at Arizona

5 p.m., Channel 11

Starters--Yankee RH Mike Mussina vs. Diamondback RH Curt Schilling

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