Kevin Kennedy On Rivera's 500th Save

Today (June 29, 2009) on his daily talk show on SIRIUS XM Radio, former Red Sox manager Kevin Kennedy talked about Mariano Rivera’s 500^th career save, which came against the Mets last night at Citi Field.

Kennedy, who managed the Red Sox in 1995 and 1996, recalled being on the receiving end of a particularly dominant performance by Rivera while in his early years as a set-up man for the Yankees.

Kevin Kennedy: “I’ll never forget this as long as I live, it’s a true story: we’re in New York, the old Yankee Stadium, Rivera comes in and he just blows it by Mo Vaughn, [Jose] Canseco, Reggie Jefferson, whoever. He went through us in the seventh and eighth inning like he was facing little leaguers. And you’re talking about the [1995 AL] MVP [in Vaughn]. I’ll never forget after the eighth inning, I think he struck out Mo, and I saw Derek [Jeter] cover his glove over his mouth and Rivera happened to get the ball and look at him, and Derek just kind of shook his head and laughed. Now, he covered his mouth out of respect because he wasn’t laughing at the Red Sox. He was laughing like, ‘I can’t believe how good this guy is, how dominant this guy is. I’m glad I’m not facing him.’ It was a respectful thing. I knew what Derek was doing. It wasn’t about, ‘Oh, we’ve got you guys.’ It wasn’t about that. I’ll never forget that, watching that from the visiting dugout, and I’m thinking the same thing on the bench. Now, all these years later, did I know Rivera would have 500 saves and be able to do this for, you know, 15 years in a row? No, but I did know there was something special we were watching that year in ’96.”

Mariano Rivera was really good against the Red Sox in 1995 and 1996 as the set-up man, but I think the game he was talking about was September 22, 1996. In the 7th, Troy O'Leary flew out to left, Bill Hasselman struck out, and Arquimedez Pozo (who?) struck out. After Paul O'Neill hit a sacrifice fly driving home Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera came back out and got a lineout from Darren Bragg, a double from Jeff Frye, a groundout from Reggie Jefferson (moving Frye to third), and then he struck out Mo Vaughn to end the inning. So not exactly how Kennedy remembered it, but still pretty good.

In 1995, Mariano had one game against the Red Sox, with two innings, with no baserunners and one strikeout. In 1996, he was 1-0 with one earned run in 7 innings, a WHIP of 1.000 and 13 strikeouts to one walk. THAT is the dominance that Kennedy was talking about.