NEW YORK — The New York Yankees must’ve thought they’d woken up in some doomsday, alternate universe Saturday afternoon, watching Mariano Rivera get smoked by the Rays. It wasn’t so much the cut-fastballs left over the plate,

slaughtered like lambs during a four-run ninth-inning, or how the great Yankee closer was knocked out, forced to take that million-mile walk to the dugout in the midst of a 9-7 loss.
Even more shocking was Rivera’s second-guessing Joe Girardi’s decision to intentionally walk Evan Longoria — a sign of how unsettled and embarrassed Rivera was by his meltdown to a division rival.
Talk about surreal: In the 12 years he’s been safeguarding the bullpen, Rivera never has openly questioned his manager — never. Then again, Rivera has never been as vulnerable as he seems to be this year, with a 3.47 ERA that includes five home runs, as many as he’s ever given up in a season as a reliever.
The Yankees won’t admit to themselves the 39-year-old Rivera is at the doorstep of his decline phase; the thought is too dark to contemplate. But is there any doubt something’s missing? The fact Girardi would even consider shielding Rivera from the dangerous Longoria tells you this is a different closer than the one who’s carried the Yankees for more than a decade.
With the Rays already having taken a 6-5 lead on Rivera with a runner on third, Girardi tried to create an easier matchup: He bypassed Longoria, who’d homered off Rivera on May 7, for B.J. Upton, who was lifetime 1-for-7 with six strikeouts against Rivera.
Statistically, it was the right move; Girardi’s logic was beyond reproach. But Rivera wasn’t buying it. “If it was up to me, I would’ve pitched to (Longoria),” he said. “I don’t go out there to intentionally walk guys.”
Reminded that Girardi meant no insult to Rivera, and of his previous success against Upton, the closer shook his head and said, “regardless of what he said. I felt (Longoria) was the guy.”
Rivera, however, had no scientific explanation of what happened next: Despite his seeming advantage over Upton, Rivera allowed the Rays’ center fielder a line drive that blistered through the box, forcing Rivera to flinch in self-defense.
That gave the Rays a two-run lead and left Girardi no choice but to rescue his closer. Rivera surrendered the ball and, head down, ambled slowly to the dugout. The crowd neither booed nor offered polite applause, instead murmuring uncomfortably as Rivera disappeared into the dugout. No one, it seemed, was sure how to interpret such catastrophic failure from a deity.
Girardi, of all people, captured the moment perfectly. “It doesn’t happen very often,” he said, “so when it does, you’re a little bit shocked.”
The Yankees only can hope Rivera rebounds before the start of Tuesday’s nuclear showdown in Fenway. History says he’ll be fine. But little by little, the Bombers are inching toward an acceptance that Rivera’s ninth innings are no longer a sure thing, especially against their most critical rivals.
Against the Red Sox and Rays this year, Rivera’s ERA stands at 13.50, including 10 hits (three home runs) in 4 innings. It’s a small sample size, but scouts have been whispering all year that Rivera’s arsenal has been downgraded ever so slightly in 2009. Both the velocity and trajectory of his cutter have been affected.
Right-handed hitters were once at Rivera’s mercy, swinging at what they thought was the middle of the plate before a late cutting-action took the pitch off the bat’s sweet spot. There was no defending against the cutter, let alone attacking it. It was too quick, too violent, for the brain’s synapses.
But lately, Rivera’s cutter has acquired a fractionally bigger bow, making it look more like a slider. Although he still has excellent control — just one walk in 24 innings — the pitch has lost some of the element of surprise. That much was obvious when Ben Zobrist was able to take a back-door, outsider-corner cutter and smash it to left-center to lead off the ninth inning.
The line drive was perfectly placed between Johnny Damon and Melky Cabrera, a triple that signaled the beginning of the end for Rivera. The Yankees had tied the game in the bottom of the eighth, and Rivera took the mound with the idea of whipping through the Rays.
The Yankees, who had the top of the order due up, were primed for another one of their dramatic ninth-inning walk-off victories.
One-two-three. That was the plan. That’s been the equation for a million years in the Bronx. But Joe Dillon’s RBI single to left-center, giving the Rays their breakthrough lead, suggested Zobrist’s blast was no fluke. Rivera knew it, too.
“It’s hard (to accept),” he said quietly. “You go out there to get three outs and you turn around and it’s four runs.”
The wound felt even deeper after the Yankees rallied for two runs in the bottom of the ninth, creating a little theater by bringing the tying run to the plate against the closer-less Rays. But Dan Wheeler and Randy Choate were able to cough and wheeze their way to the final three outs, leaving the Yankees to wonder just went wrong.
Actually, everyone knew exactly: for one day, the Yankees had been carted off to a dark, surreal place where Rivera couldn’t get out of an inning and stood up to his manager in public.
Was it real or a passing illusion? The question, by itself, is enough to make the Bombers squirm.