Enter Sandman, again and again

Each Spring it seems, they write his epitaph.

“He’s just a freak of nature,” the Toronto Blue Jays’ Frank Thomas said. “He’s mastered a pitch. People say he’s going to lose it. He’s not going to lose it.”

Rivera struck out the side to end Monday’s game, plowing through three fearsome hitters — Alex Rios, Vernon Wells and Thomas — with pitches that reached 97 miles an hour.

Thomas knows how Rivera will pitch him, but he is still almost helpless, with just 3 hits in 20 career at-bats. The cutter — “To me, he’s the inventor of it,” Thomas said — is just that good.

“It’s effortless, and when the ball’s 96 with late movement like that, it’s unheard of,” Thomas said. “He gets better and better and better. When he’s fully rested, it’s a truly amazing pitch.”

Rivera has evolved a bit, throwing a tailing two-seamer sometimes, or a straight four-seam fastball to back a hitter off the cutter. Every spring, he toys with a changeup. But the cutter acts for him the way it does for no one else.

Rivera has converted his last 18 save opportunities, allowing only two earned runs in 21 1/3 innings in those games, with no walks and 22 strikeouts. The Yankees are 57-1 when leading after eight, the loss coming in Oakland on April 15, when Marco Scutaro pulled a two-out, three-run homer to beat Rivera by a run.

It's been a wild year. In April and May, Yankee fans (and we weren't the only ones) were scratching our heads and wondering if and how the team got so old so fast. If it weren't for Rodriguez, supported by Jeter and Posada, the team would have been even more buried than it was by the end of May. Now, it's amazing just how young the team is, with Melky (23 tomorrow), Cano (24), Andy Phillips (though "young" may be stretching it in his case), Phil Hughes (21 and pitching tonight against Carmona), and Joba Chamberlain (aka "Superchief") all starting to make important contributions.

But that doesn't mean the Yankees are prepared to see the venerable Mariano Rivera drift off into senescence.

The Yankees did not negotiate an extension with Rivera this spring because they wanted to see how his elbow held up. The elbow is fine now, Rivera said, and both sides hope to reach an agreement soon after the season.

“I’ve said from the beginning, we have every intention of signing him,” General Manager Brian Cashman said. “At the appropriate time, we will have that conversation.”

I'm pretty sure Rivera will be wearing the inter-locking N-Y for the remainder of his career.