Rivera Human After All

The sight was striking and a little surreal: Mariano Rivera, the greatest closer of our generation and arguably the best of all-time, long-tossing in the outfield under the watchful eye of a pitching coach.

It happened about four hours before Monday night's game between the Yankees and Blue Jays, and it probably happens about as often as Rivera blows three saves in a month, which is practically never.

But it happened this month, the third of which came Sunday night in as close to a must-win game as the Yankees have played all season, and as a result there were Rivera and Dave Eiland working on something that is usually the problem of mere mortals. Namely, mechanics.

"Just location,'' Rivera said. "Nothing big. It's a process and we're working on it.''

"Hand position on the ball,'' is how Eiland described the subject of Monday's lesson. "When he lets his hand fall to the side of the ball instead of staying on top, sometimes his cutter gets too big, and sometimes it just spins and stays flat. Nothing major. He's a human being and sometimes he needs a little tune-up.''

Asked jokingly if he was working on a new pitch, perhaps a changeup to go with his lethal cutter, Rivera laughed. "No changeups,'' he said.

Knuckleball? "Not yet.''

Eiland was quick to assure Yankee Nation that Rivera's problems were mechanical, not physical. "He's fine, he's fine,'' said Eiland, who insisted he would have no hesitation using Rivera Monday despite his having thrown 29 pitches in a 1 1/3 inning outing in which he not only blew the save but would have taken the loss had his Red Sox counterpart, Jonathan Papelbon, not returned the favor in the bottom of the ninth.

Rivera was less reassuring about his overall physical condition. "Problems are in abundance, bumps and bruises and things,'' he said, "but nothing that will affect me.''

Rivera has suffered from a muscle strain in the left side of his back this year and some knee soreness, injuries that he acknowledged were still there. "Nobody can play 162 games and say they're 100 percent,'' he said. "Everybody has them and I'm no exception. But everything;s fine. Don't go trying to find things. Everything is great.''

Rivera and Eiland moved their tutorial to the visitor's bullpen, where the 40-year-old closer threw an undisclosed number of pitches in an effort to make what the pitching coach said would be minor adjustments.

"I liken it to when Tiger Woods was at his peak, he still spent several hours a day with his swing coach just to make sure everything was working right,'' Eiland said. He said such tune-up sessions took place "two or three times a year.''

"Every now and then he needs to be touched up a little,'' Eiland said.

Of even less importance to Eiland was the four stolen bases off Rivera and Jorge Posada by Ryan Kalish and Bill Hall that set up the two Boston runs that gave them a short-lived 3-2 lead. "He might have been getting a little predictable,'' Eiland said. "But our main concern was making a good pitch and getting the hitter out.''

Rivera had an even simpler solution to his problem of holding runners on. "Don't let anyone get on base,'' he said.