page_title: Mariano Rivera
section_title: Pitching style
hierarchical_section_title: Mariano Rivera / Player profile / Pitching style
caption_attribution_description: English: A bat belonging to Toronto Blue Jays player Brett Lawrie that was broken by a cut fastball thrown by New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera on September 17, 2011, during a game in which Rivera recorded a record-tying 601st career regular season save
context_page_description: Mariano Rivera is a Panamanian-American former professional baseball pitcher who played 19 seasons in Major League Baseball for the New York Yankees, from 1995 to 2013. Nicknamed "Mo" and "Sandman", he spent most of his career as a relief pitcher and served as the Yankees' closer for 17 seasons. A thirteen-time All-Star and five-time World Series champion, he is MLB's career leader in saves and games finished. Rivera won five American League Rolaids Relief Man Awards and three Delivery Man of the Year Awards, and he finished in the top three in voting for the AL Cy Young Award four times. He was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as part of its class of 2019 in his first year of eligibility, and was the first player ever to be elected unanimously by the Baseball Writers' Association of America.
  Raised in the modest Panamanian fishing village of Puerto Caimito, Rivera was an amateur player until he was signed by the Yankees organization in 1990. He debuted in the major leagues in 1995 as a starting pitcher, before permanently converting to a relief pitcher late in his rookie year. After a breakthrough season in 1996 as a setup man, he became the Yankees' closer in 1997.
context_section_description: Rivera's signature pitch was a cut fastball or "cutter", which exhibited lateral movement towards left-handed hitters similar to that of a slider but with the velocity of a fastball. The sharp, late movement of Rivera's cutter prevented hitters from making contact with the ball on the sweet spot of their bats, leading to them not only making weak contact on batted balls but also frequently breaking their bats. According to a tally by columnist Buster Olney, Rivera broke 44 bats during the 2001 regular season. Chipper Jones, who once witnessed teammate Ryan Klesko break three bats in one plate appearance against Rivera in the 1999 World Series, called the pitch a "buzz saw". Rivera's long fingers and loose wrist allowed him to impart more spin on the ball, contributing to the pitch's movement. Describing his grip of the cutter, he said, "it's really a four-seam fastball with pressure on the middle finger". By adjusting the pressure that he applied to the ball with his fingertips, he could vary the pitch's movement. One of the keys to his cutter grip was bending his thumb at the knuckle and tucking it under the ball so the nail aligned with his middle finger; this position prevented his thumb pad from impeding the spin of the ball as it left his hand. Rivera threw four-seam and two-seam fastballs as complementary pitches but primarily used his cutter; according to baseball statistics website Fangraphs, 83.3% of his pitches in 2010 were cutters. All three pitches typically reached a velocity in the low-to-mid 90s mph.
  Early in his major-league career, Rivera was a "power pitcher" who relied on an overpowering four-seam fastball that topped out at 96 mph (154 km/h) to retire hitters. By enticing them to swing and miss at pitches high in the strike zone, he accumulated strikeouts at a high rate. Rivera altered his pitching style after accidentally discovering the cutter. One day in June 1997 during one of his daily warm-up tosses with teammate Ramiro Mendoza, Rivera noticed that his fastballs were moving sharply and unpredictably, a problem that began to occur in games as well. After unsuccessfully spending a month trying to eliminate the movement, Rivera relented and incorporated the cutter into his pitching repertoire, making it one of his primary pitches in 1998. When asked about the pitch's origin, he explained, "It was just from God. I didn't do anything. It was natural." As he came to rely on the cutter, Rivera began to record more outs on batted balls. Consequently, his strikeout rate decreased in subsequent years, dropping from 10.87 strikeouts per 9 innings in 1996 to 5.3 in 1998, but at the benefit of more efficiency; his pitches per inning rate dropped from 18.7 in 1995 to 14.9 in 1998. Rivera credited his improved efficiency and consequent longevity in baseball to his long-time pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre.
  Rivera had an impeccable ability to accurately locate pitches and consistently throw strikes, particularly on the inside and outside edges of the strike zone. This strength offset his reliance on one pitch and hitters' anticipation of it. His former catcher Joe Girardi said, "He was so easy to catch because he always put the ball right there. I don't think there's ever been a pitcher that great who was so easy to catch." Rivera's 4.10 career strikeout-to-walk ratio in the regular season ranks 14th-best in MLB history. His control was a byproduct of his smooth, easily repeated pitching motion, which some opposing hitters found to be deceptive. One such player, Darrin Fletcher, said in 1999 that Rivera "almost kind of lulls you to sleep with his delivery. It gives you a false sense of security, and then the ball is on you and it's exploding."
  Although switch-hitters usually bat left-handed against right-handed pitchers to better see the ball's release point, switch-hitters occasionally batted right-handed when facing the right-handed Rivera to avoid being jammed on their hands by his cutter. Similarly, some managers, such as Bruce Bochy in the 1998 World Series, sent right-handed batters to pinch hit for left-h
caption: A bat broken by Rivera's cutter during his record-tying 601st career save, on display in the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum
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