Sunday, May 13, 2012
They can't shorten the game the way they could with Rivera, I'll just leave it at that-Joe Maddon
5/10/12, Bill Madden: "What he does know is that, despite all the assurances of this being a common injury, there is nothing routine about it....
But he was home with his family Tuesday night, watching the Yankees and Tampa Bay Rays on TV in his living room — and especially his successor, David Robertson, struggle through a difficult 25-pitch ninth-inning before finally nailing down the save — when he once again felt the passion....
Wednesday night was not so good, and watching as Robertson, called upon to preserve a one-run lead in the ninth, immediately loaded the bases, had to be excruciating for Rivera. When Robertson subsequently coughed it up on a sac fly by B.J. Upton and a three-run homer by Matt Joyce for a 4-1 Yankee loss, Rays manager Joe Maddon’s response to a question about Rivera rang prophetic.
“The different mind-set comes from them,” Maddon said, “coming into the game for the ninth unprotected. There’s no safety net . . .
- and I’ll just leave it at that.
From our standpoint there’s a different vibe in that they can’t shorten the game they way they could.”
The Yankees can only hope this was merely a blip for Robertson and not a foreboding of what life is going to be for them without Rivera — for this year or forever. Unlike his adamant and defiant “put it down in big letters” vow in Kansas City last week, Rivera was much more somber, if characteristically spiritual, in reiterating his intentions on Wednesday. Now that he has all the time to recuperate, he will take advantage of spending much of it at home, especially when the Yankees are on the road.
“If this is my call, I don’t want to leave the game the way I have,” he said."...
5/10/12, "Yankees' Mariano Rivera grateful he is the one being saved this time as blood clot is discovered," Bill Madden, NY Daily News
