Saturday, September 17, 2011
Larry Rothschild discusses Rivera using 'slide-step' recently, quickening his delivery to the plate
9/15/11, "Rivera recorded No. 600 Tuesday night in Seattle. That one and No. 599 also were fresh in Rothschild's mind, and not only because they just happened.
"The last two games he slide- steps to keep runners [close],'' Rothschild said, "and he gets a double play to end one game and gets a guy thrown out to end the next."
Rivera did it Sunday in Anaheim with Erick Aybar on first, inducing a double-play grounder from Howie Kendrick. On Tuesday, he slide-stepped with the speedy Ichiro Suzuki on first, and Russell Martin threw him out stealing in a bang-bang play.
"There's a lot of closers that aren't going to do that, especially guys with his success," Rothschild said of the slide step, which essentially is quickening the delivery to the plate. "And up until that point he has hardly slide-stepped this year. But he picked the two games where you needed to do it to get it done . . . and he did it.""...
9/15/11, "Rivera amazes pitching coach Rothschild," Newsday, Eric Boland
Mariano Rivera with feet up in the bullpen, 8th inning in Toronto, 9/16/11, Reuters. Toronto won 5-4, Rivera did not pitch.
Labels: Larry Rothschild discusses Mariano Rivera recently using slide-step
