1. Many players around the sport wore No. 42 yesterday in a worthy tribute to Jackie Robinson. Today just one player will still be wearing No. 42, and let’s celebrate Mariano Rivera a little bit. We see older closers such as Joe Borowski and Trevor Hoffman fade and/or lose a good dose of their stuff. Yet here is Rivera, age 38, just about the same as ever. He remains about the three Cs: Cool, calm and cutters. Joe Girardi has spoken about the serene feeling he had as a catcher once Rivera entered the game. Now he says he feels the same way with Rivera on the mound. Rivera’s first six outings: 6 1-3 innings, three hits, no walks, seven strikeouts, no runs allowed and a .136 batting average against. It feels right that the last man who will ever wear No. 42 in the majors is as special as Mariano Rivera.
2. Curt Schilling’s doctor recently implied that Schilling told him that he is so frustrated with how his rehab from shoulder problems is going that he might want to pitch next season and might want to do it for the Yankees. Schilling yesterday told reporters that the Yankees are not an option. And so we can put this headline on that story: SCHILLING NOT INTERESTED IN TEAM THAT WOULD HAVE HAD ZERO INTEREST IN HIM ANYWAY. Beyond if they want to bring Schilling’s, um, personality into the clubhouse, the Yanks have been trying to move away from older pitchers in steep decline and watching Mike Mussina and his 84 mph fastball is not going to encourage them to dance with any more pitching senior citizens.
3. The Mets could not have scripted a game more pleasing to them than the 6-0 triumph over Washington. There was so much to like, but the three main elements were that: 1) Jose Reyes returned to the lineup healthy and resembling the player who was a force in the first half of last season. The Mets didn’t have a triple until Tuesday night. They do now. 2) Mike Pelfrey authored seven shutout innings. He looked, more than ever, like the pitcher the Mets thought they had drafted in the first round. It is not just that Pedro Martinez and Orlando Hernandez are out that makes Pelfrey so important, but also that Martinez, Hernandez and Oliver Perez are free agents after this season. So Pelfrey needs to be able to join Johan Santana and John Maine to form the Met rotation of the future, as well. 3) Duaner Sanchez returned to pitch a scoreless inning. After missing more than a year and a half due to multiple shoulder issues, Sanchez is still a long way from reproving he is an eighth-inning stalwart. But he is a lot closer today than he was yesterday morning.