Are We Finally Witnessing Mariano Rivera's Decline?

Mariano Rivera has built a career and legacy on being superhuman, but he is currently going through a stretch that has made him look mortal, blowing three consecutive save opportunities.

It was bound to happen eventually. A career decline is something every pitcher in baseball goes through, but does this point to a bigger problem for the New York Yankees closer?

As Jay Jaffe of Sports Illustrated noted after Rivera's third straight blown save (in a game the Yankees wound up winning), the veteran being picked apart at this stage of his career is inevitable. 

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Such a rare stretch is bound to set off another What’s Wrong With Mariano Week (WWWMW) among fans and pundits, a rite of summer that dates back to at least 2004, when the Replacement Level Yankee Weblog coined the phrase. No matter how short a slump or how rare Rivera’s failures may be, any clustering of them tends to a frenzy of overanalysis that leads to the panicked conclusion: This must be the beginning of the end.

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It's hard to say we are witnessing "The End of Mariano Rivera" because that was coming whether we wanted it to or not. He stated long ago that this was going to be his final season, it was just a matter of whether things would end in triumph or despair (without a championship or even a final postseason appearance). 

Yet after allowing two home runs against Detroit on Sunday, Rivera has given up seven hits and five runs (all earned) in his last four innings. It's the first time in his 19-year career that he's blown three consecutive save opportunities. 

At 42 years old, Rivera had defied every law of athletics with the way he was pitching prior to this current stretch. He had a 1.70 ERA, 35 saves in 37 chances, 38 hits allowed, 39 strikeouts, seven walks and two home runs allowed in 40.1 innings. 

Oh, and by the way, Rivera was doing all of that after coming off a torn ACL suffered in a pre-game accident in Kansas City on May 3, 2012. To be 42 years old and performing at this level in the best division in baseball speaks to Rivera's natural ability. 

Because we are a society that always asks what have you done for me lately and overreacts to everything, the popular consensus will be to say that Rivera has hit the wall every reliever does at some point in a career. 

But can't we just look at this as a small-sample anomaly? Should we completely dismiss Rivera's first 40.1 innings this season because he has had a poor four-inning stretch? 

Yes, Rivera has made bad pitches along the way, and since his cutter has lost velocity, it is easier to square up if it is in the middle of the plate.

But let's not forget that two of the home runs Rivera gave up came against Miguel Cabrera, who is regarded as the best hitter on the planet and owns a robust .365/.459/.686 slash line with 36 home runs. 

Right before Cabrera hit his home run off Rivera on Friday, he popped a ball into foul territory that was just inches from being caught and then hit two cutters perfectly placed on the inner half of the plate into his shin.

Are we really supposed to believe that just moments after throwing the pitch that has caused hitters headaches for nearly two decades, Rivera lost it and will be a shell of his former self, holding on to past glory while riding out the rest of the season?

It takes a lot more than just one bad stretch to change things, especially when everything we have seen from Rivera this season prior to the weekend was exactly what we have come to expect. 

And that's not an exaggeration. Here is a side-by-side look at Rivera's numbers from 2008-12 and what he was doing in 2013 prior to this weekend:

Consistency is the reason that Rivera has become a revered figure coming out of the bullpen, because relievers, by nature, are incredibly volatile. They have good years and bad years, but Rivera is one of the few who has maintained a level of greatness year after year after year. 

Rivera doesn't have bad seasons. There have been some years sprinkled in that were less good, like 2007, when his ERA was over 3.00 for the first time since moving to the bullpen full time in 1996. But even that season Rivera struck out 74 and allowed just 68 hits in 71.1 innings. 

It is Rivera's fault for being so consistently great—not just good—for so many years that makes us raise our eyebrows and wonder when the other shoe is going to drop.

But if anyone wants to make a declaration that Rivera is lost at sea with no hope of rescue because of a bad weekend, I would strongly urge you to look at what was happening over the first 110 games of this season. 

If you want to talk baseball, feel free to hit me up on Twitter with questions or comments. 

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