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The media's overreaction on Mariano Rivera

As seems to be all too common, the media has blown Mariano Rivera's recent struggles out-of-proportion. The long-time New York Yankees closer has blown his past three save opportunities - the first time that's occurred in his Hall-of-Fame career. What has happened as a result of that? ESPN analysts wondering aloud if Rivera is losing "it."

Let's get something straight here - while Rivera has struggled in his past three outings, even with those struggles, he has a very solid ERA of 2.44. Rivera is now 3-2 on the year, with 35 saves (5 blown), 41 strikeouts and 8 walks in 44.1 innings pitched.

This is Rivera's 19th year with the Yankees. To this point, he's saved 643 games for the club, struck out 1,160 batters, while walking just 285 in 1,264.0 innings. He also has a career ERA of 2.22 and a WHIP of 1.00.

Those are just Rivera's regular season stats. His post-season statistics are even more impressive. He's 8-1 in post-season play, with 42 saves. In 141.0 innings work, he's struck out 110 batters and walked only 21. His post-season ERA and WHIP are 0.70 and 0.76.

Mariano Rivera is arguably the greatest closer of all-time and I don't even think it's debatable that he's the greatest post-season closer of all-time. So he's had some struggles of late. Let's not look past who Rivera was facing over the weekend - Miguel Cabrera, a guy who could hit a home run in his sleep at this point in his career. Also - news-flash - the Yankees aren't playing particularly well right now. They're just 59-57 and ten games behind Boston atop the American League East and seven games behind Tampa Bay for the final Wild Card spot. While not impossible, it's going to be extremely difficult for the Yankees to make the post-season this year, and it will in no way be due to Rivera. The club is ranked 27th in runs scored, 27th in batting average, 26th in on-base percentage, and 29th in slugging percentage.

While I'm in no way a Yankees fan (far from it), I have the utmost respect for Rivera. The guy has been a class act on and off the field throughout his career, deserves to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer for both his regular and post-season accomplishments, and deserves better than this recent over-the-top criticism and doubt he's received from the press.

http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/_/id/3240/mariano-rivera

http://espn.go.com/mlb/player/stats/_/id/3240/mariano-rivera

http://espn.go.com/mlb/team/_/name/nyy/new-york-yankees
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