They were two of the longest walks taken at Yankee Stadium in recent memory. When it got too painful to watch Mariano Rivera any longer, Yankees manager Joe Torre had to go out and remove the great finisher Wednesday.
And after a short talk on the mound, Rivera walked off, shoulders drooping, the frustration of another failure against the Red Sox scrawled all over his face. A proud, beaten man, he plopped down on the dugout bench and watched, bewildered, as Felix Rodriguez finished an inning he had started.
It has become so far from the eight-to-10 pitch, three-up, three-down finish the Yankees are used to seeing when Rivera is dialed up. Is an era finishing instead?
“When I lose my confidence, I’ll leave,” said Rivera, who gave up five runs in the ninth and lost to the Red Sox 7-3 before 55,165. “That will never happen.”
So the Yankees won two out of three, but it hardly feels like a successful series, not when they are so unsure of their ability to close out a game, especially against the team they need to beat.
“He’s still the best there is,” Torre said. “When you say the Red Sox have his number, I don’t know what that means. He’s our No.1 guy, and he’ll always be our No.1 guy.
“My job is to remind people who they are, and how good they are.”
The “Mo is only human” line has been a staple for the Yankees. Rivera, who had 336 saves in his first 10 seasons, has blown only 51.
But to start a season with back-to-back blown saves is a blow to the fans’ psyche, and he heard a mix of boos for the first time.
“There were probably 20,000 Red Sox fans here,” Rivera said. “I can’t pick out who is for the Yankees.”
Torre said: “If they were coming from the Yankees side, it’s inexcusable.
“People wouldn’t be champing at the bit to get in this park if it weren’t for him.”
