The ACL Curse Strikes Again: Mariano Rivera Edition

For as long as I've been alive and able to understand what Baseball was, I have been watching Mariano Rivera dominate the 9th inning at the back end of the Yankees bullpen.  It was unfortunate to hear that he was the most recent famous athlete to have been struck by the torn-ACL bug.  How and when the injury occurred was also disappointing, as Rivera was warming up by fielding fly balls before a recent game when he collapsed in pain and was not able to leave the field under his own power.  Rivera was distraught when asked about the injury after the game, as I'm sure most Yankees fans were as well, and he expressed doubt about whether he would ever pitch again.  More recently however, he made the definitive announcement that he would overcome this injury at age 42, and pitch again.  He invited fans to mark his words.

Although opposing hitters might breathe a sigh of relief in knowing they won't have to face Rivera during crunch time in the near future, everyone in Baseball as well as any true fans have to root for him to recover and come back strong.  He is a living legend, one of the best pitcher's in Baseball history (which is pretty long by the way), and without a doubt the best relief pitcher/closer of all time.  If there was an official statistic for most bats broken, he would surely be record holder.  What there is a stat for in playoff ERA.  In 141 innings pitched during the postseason, Rivera has a staggering ERA of 0.70.  That is the average amount of runs he gives up, not due to errors, in 9 innings pitched.  Less than one.  As a closer he would only typically appear for 1-2 innings at a time.  Needless to say, that ERA is incredibly low, and speaks to his brilliance.

Not only did Rivera make a living dominating in the most intense, pressure packed situations, he did so with essentially one pitch.  The cut-fastball was that one pitch, it has become a common weapon in a modern pitcher's arsenal, but was not so common even 10-15 years ago; Rivera can take some of the credit for popularizing this pitch.  His cutter is so devastating he didn't need anything else.  It is quite an amazing feat to be so successful for so long when hitters know that some type of fastball is coming every single pitch.  Although I do vaguely remember Rivera having a slider he used occasionally back in the late 90s, the more dominant he became the less he deviated from the cut-fastball.  It is impossible to quantify the value that Rivera had to the Yankees the past 16 seasons with 5 World Series rings to show for it.  We wish Mariano a speedy recovery.  In the mean-time, the Yankees will need to make some adjustments in the absence of their legendary lights-out closer.