To many, Yankees’ Mariano Rivera has no equal

Joe Girardi was a major league catcher for 15 seasons and has been a big league manager for five. During that time he has caught, counseled and consoled hundreds of pitchers, including Greg Maddux, Andy Pettitte, Roger Clemens and Dwight Gooden.

Yet, the New York Yankees manager doesn’t have to think long to identify the best one with whom he has worked.

“When people ask me who the greatest pitcher I ever caught was, I say Mo,” Girardi said, referring to Yankees closer Mariano Rivera.

Not just the greatest closer or the greatest postseason reliever of all time, the two sobriquets Rivera has owned for some time. But the greatest pitcher ever?

“Yeah, I think you’d have look at that too,” said Girardi, who has never been one for overstatement. “Being back there, you can always see a lot more than you can necessarily see from the bench. You can see the movement, the location, and it does give you a comfortable feeling.”

Not if you’re standing at the plate with a bat in your hands. With a repertoire that consists largely of one pitch, a cut fastball that God taught him how to throw, Rivera has embarrassed enough hitters and sawed off enough bats to earn fear and respect.

And even now, at 41, it’s unlikely anyone played a bigger role in getting the Yankees into an American League division series against the Detroit Tigers than Rivera. With one victory and 44 saves, he had a hand in nearly half of the Yankees’ 97 victories this season. He has been even better in the postseason, with an 8-1 mark, a record 42 saves and an 0.71 earned-run average before this year.

But is he the all-time best?

“When you talk about the best starting pitchers of all time, there’s a lot of different names thrown out. You probably have four or five guys always in the conversation,” teammate Mark Teixeira said. “When you talk about the greatest relievers of all time, there’s only one guy. The conversation begins and ends with Mo.”

Don’t take his manager’s and his teammate’s word on that. The record books also bear testimony to Rivera’s dominance.

In September, he surpassed Trevor Hoffman’s career saves record, eventually extending his total to 603. Yet, even that doesn’t begin to explain the depth of Rivera’s dominance.

In 16 full seasons, Rivera has had an ERA above 3.00 once, and an ERA below 2.00 11 times, giving him a career mark of 2.21.

He has averaged nearly 38 saves per season, finishing first or second in the AL six times, including this season, when he finished five behind league leader Jose Valverde of the Tigers.

Rivera is so good, in fact, the Angels’ Torii Hunter had to go to mythology to find a comparable figure.

“Think about all the legends like Hercules, guys who are talked about forever,” said Hunter, who has struck out seven times in 12 career at-bats against Rivera. “In baseball, when you talk about a reliever, Mariano Rivera is like a ghost, like a monster. When all the players in Major League Baseball talk about one guy so much all the time, when you say his name and they go, ‘Arrrrrgggghhhh.’ That’s respect.”

But is he the best pitcher of all time?

“He’s a reliever, but I’m pretty sure he’s a pitcher, so yes, I think he is,” Hunter said. “He’s one of the nastiest pitchers in the game.”

Directly across the Angels’ clubhouse, Hunter’s teammate Vernon Wells demurs.

“I would choose a starter before a reliever,” said Wells, who is six for 19 against Rivera. “When you look at Nolan Ryan and what he accomplished, the innings starters put in, they’re asked to put so much stress on their arms over the course of the year.

“But Mariano is one of the few people who you can put in that conversation as a reliever and that says enough in itself.”

Yet, Rivera’s most impressive trait may be his consistency. He has never had a bad season since becoming a full-time closer in 1997, saving fewer than 30 games in a season only once and blowing as many as six saves in a season only twice. The Kansas City Royals had two pitchers blow more than that this season.

“He’s one of those guys that, whenever he decides to retire, he’s going to retire on top,” Teixeira said.

When that might be, even Rivera isn’t sure. He already has the saves record, five World Series rings, 12 All-Star selections and a firm reservation for a place in the Hall of Fame. So why come back for another season, other than for the $15 million left on his contract, that is.

“For the love of the game,” Rivera said with a smile.

As spectacular as Rivera’s career has been, he admits he owes much of it to happenstance. The son of a fishing boat captain, Rivera was born in Panama, a country known more for jockeys than baseball players.

As a boy Rivera’s favorite sport was soccer, but ankle injuries stalled his career there and he turned to baseball, something he considered little more than a hobby. Nevertheless, the Yankees looked at him as an 18-year-old shortstop, but they left unimpressed.

A year later, when Rivera volunteered to take the place of a struggling pitcher on his amateur team, the right-hander threw so well that his teammates contacted Yankees scout Chico Heron, who urged the team to sign the teenager as a pitcher.

Rivera made his big league debut against the Angels five years later and was rocked. It was an inauspicious start for a soft-throwing 25-year-old rookie coming off elbow surgery, so much so that the Yankees offered Rivera to the Detroit Tigers as part of a package for left-hander David Wells.

But before the deal could go through, the Yankees changed their minds and Wells went to the Cincinnati Reds instead.

That may be the best trade the Yankees never made. Rivera finished the season as a reliever, making three scoreless appearances and picking up a win in New York’s division series loss to Seattle. He hasn’t started a game since.

“That was a great decision,” Rivera said of his move to the bullpen. “It wasn’t mine. But it was a great decision.”

Asked whether he could have been on the way to the Hall of Fame as a starter, Rivera smiled again.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “Every kid from the minor leagues wants to be a starter. But you don’t know what God has for you. It definitely wasn’t for me.”

A man of deep faith, Rivera sees God’s hand in every positive turn in his career. There was the inexplicable jump in velocity that took his fastball from the high 80s to the mid-90s virtually overnight, persuading the Yankees to call off the Wells trade. There was the fortuitous move from the rotation to the bullpen. And finally, there was the discovery of the cutter, which took Rivera from a good reliever to the greatest closer in history.

“The cutter is devastating. The cutter is unique,” Yankees catcher Jorge Posada said. “It just explodes at the end.”

That, too, came from God. How else could it be explained? On a summer day, just like any other, Rivera went out to play catch with fellow reliever Ramiro Mendoza. But on this day the ball would not fly straight, dipping and diving unpredictably.

Mendoza told Rivera to knock it off, but Rivera pleaded ignorance. Suddenly, he had no control over the ball. The grip was the same as his four-seam fastball, until then his signature pitch. But the results were anything but similar.

Now 95% of the pitches Rivera throws to left-handed hitters are cut fastballs, including a back-door version he has perfected that breaks down and away. He throws the pitch about 75% of the time to right-handers, who also get to see a sinker he recently added.

“When Mo is on and he’s making his pitches, you’re not going to hit him,” Teixeira said. “There’s no secret what he throws. It’s an impressive thing that he can do.”

So when the bullpen gate swings open and Yankee Stadium fills with the strains of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” — Exit light/Enter night/Take my hand/We’re off to never-never land — it’s a special moment even for opponents.

“Him coming out of the bullpen in New York, the music playing, you know you’re facing the greatest closer who ever played this game,” Vernon Wells said. “That made it exciting, no matter what the game situation.”

But is he the best of all time?

“Well, I never talk about myself. I let others talk about me,” Rivera said with yet another grin. “Whatever other people say, it’s OK with me.

“I know I have a job to do and I want to be a winner.”

kevin.baxter@latimes.com

Times staff writer Mike DiGiovanna contributed to this report.