Moose Can Save 'Em, Too: How Mariano Rivera and Mike Mussina Are Forever Linked by 2003 ALCS Game 7

Three innings pitched, two hits, no runs, three strikeouts.

Mike Mussina and Mariano Rivera will be enshrined in Cooperstown eternal Sunday, linked beyond their years as teammates with the New York Yankees as 2019 Hall-of-Fame inductees, immortalized in bronze. But their unique bond began to form in earnest in 2003, when both men took the mound on a night that lives on in baseball lore, and posted the exact same stat line, under significant duress.

When the lights shone brightest, with the pressure of a Game 7 ratcheted up even further, with a mounting deficit and with an extra-innings tightrope, Mussina and Rivera both shut down the Boston Red Sox in unholy and identical fashion, culminating in for me the most iconic Rivera moment of all time: a collapse on the mound, every last droplet coaxed from his fingertips, Saved.

First came Moose's chance, attempting to salvage Game 7 of a league championship series against the most hated of rivals from a position he'd never been in before: the bullpen.

His career's worth of AL East and postseason success hadn't shown up yet in this seven-gamer; he lost Game 1 to Tim Wakefield after surrendering four earned in 5.2 innings, and fell again in Game 4, whiffing 10 for naught in a 3-2 defeat. This time around, in what was likely the final chance for the Yankees to even remain in the running, Mussina strode to the mound with the Red Sox captain at the plate in Jason Varitek, runners on the corners, no outs, and a 4-0 deficit. He metaphorically shoved his open palm in Tek's face, striking him out, and a game-saving double play from Johnny Damon followed. Though far from the back end of the bullpen, Mussina acquired the Yankees' first "save" of the game (and the contest didn't include a technical save, as it turned out).

"They had high expectations, of course, and I got there after three straight World Championships...put in a lot of miles, going to Oakland, and Seattle, and Arizona," Mussina said Saturday, about his place in the vaunted franchise's endless playoff history. "9/11 had happened that year, and there was a lot going on emotionally. It became a really big stage really quickly."

"But then (two years later), Game 7 against Boston, Boonie hit the homer, and then the series the next year against the Red Sox, up 3-0, it got away from us, and they won the World Series. Rewarding, and frustrating, and disappointing, but that's a part of it. That's how it is. And I probably grew as a player from all of it."

This type of spotlight makes you grow up quickly, after all, in roles you never anticipated. Without those three innings, two hits, three strikeouts, and spotless runs column, the game never gets to Jason Giambi's bat. It never gets to Grady Little's 500-pound hook, left in his pocket. It never gets to the Pedro Martinez Paternity Test. And it certainly never gets to Mariano, finding salvation, after three indelible innings of his own.

Because as much as Mussina was the grizzled AL East veteran still chasing that elusive ring and a moment to call his own for the over-dogs, Rivera was the golden child. If there was anything more for Mo to have, we hadn't uncovered it yet. Four rings, featuring No. 42 on the mound for three of the final outs.

This time, he placed himself back there for the final rounding of the bases instead. Watching that spectacle, it becomes abundantly clear he couldn't have gone a fourth, and if not for the game ending right then and there on Boone's bat, some lesser hurler might've had to enter to undo the masterwork. Instead, we have Rivera getting two outs with runners in scoring position in the ninth and 10th, screwdriving Doug Mirabelli into the box to end the 11th, and the final, exhausted bow.

While Mussina represented the unfamiliar that night, Rivera represented security for his starter, always.

"For eight years, knowing that I have his caliber of closer back there, for that many straight years, at that level of talent. I mean...he's probably the best that ever played that position," Mussina said, emphatically correct. "It's comforting, as a starting pitcher, knowing that if I do my job well, he's gonna do his job, and we have a chance to win."

Or, perhaps, like on the special day that first connected them, someone like Mussina might have to do an entirely different job, leaving someone like Rivera to hang on for dear life just one standard deviation or so away from the breaking point. Three innings each, glory on the horizon. First time in pinstripes for one, an exclamation point for the other.

Sunday, Moose will open and Rivera will close; the starter's speech comes first, the emotional stopper's last. Mirror images once again, 16 years after both men provided breaths of fresh air in the form of three innings each. Though the emotions will be different in this iteration, the connection will be the same. And in 50 years, a century, a generation or two, the photograph of Rivera's ultimate exhale on the mound in Yankee Stadium will still be hanging in these hallowed halls, forged 16 years ago by Mike Mussina jogging in from the bullpen into the unknown.