It was a battle of the ages. It was brief but it was epic. It was David versus Goliath, or better yet, old Goliath versus young Goliath. Its outcome was predictable and it was worth the price of admission – every penny of it. It was one of those moments where years from now those who saw it in person will proudly proclaim “I was there!” (as will many who were not there).

I am, of course, talking about the greatest closer of all time, Mariano Rivera, facing what could very well be baseball’s modern day version of The Natural, Yasiel Puig.

Mariano Rivera is ‘The Natural” of closers.
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Interestingly enough, this historic match-up was made possible because of an eighth-inning two-run home run by Hanley Ramirez, who had an epic day himself going 4 for 4 in the first game of the double header and 6 for 8 on the day. That home run cut into a 6-2 Yankee lead and created a save situation out of what had become a laugher due to an earlier bonehead play at the hands of struggling Dodger reliever Ronald Belisario.

Belisario had muffed what should have been a simple infield pop-up that he intentionally let drop in an attempt to create a double play situation. It wasn’t a bad idea on Belisario’s part, just poor execution – so poor, in fact, that Belisario was charged with two errors on the play and allowed what would prove to be the eventual winning runs to score in the Dodgers 6-4 loss to their perennial interleague rivals.

With two outs and nobody on in the top of the 9th, the 22-year-old Puig stepped into the batters box to face the 42-year old future first-ballot Hall of Famer Rivera, who made his major league debut when Puig was four years old.

After taking the first two pitches that were off the plate giving young Puig a 2-0 count and a ray of hope, ‘Mo’ decided that it was time to quit screwing around and began his masterful surgery of the strike zone with a 92 MPH cut fastball that Puig hopelessly swung at and missed for strike one.

Wasting no time, Rivera repeated his signature pitch, this one at 91 MPH which Puig again swung on and missed for strike two.

There wasn’t a person in Yankee Stadium who didn’t know what Rivera’s next pitch would be and, quite frankly, what the outcome of that pitch would be – not even Yasiel Puig. It was, of course, yet another cutter, this one at 93 MPH, that absolutely froze the young Cuban superstar in his tracks for a called strike three to end the game. The old Goliath had slain the young Goliath and Puig will forever be etched in the history books as Rivera’s 1,145th career strikeout victim.

In an epic battle of two of the game’s best, Mariano Rivera would get the best of Yasiel Puig as the young superstar looks at strike three to end the game. (Click on photo to enlarge).
(Photo credit – Ron Cervenka)

Whether or not Puig will face Rivera again when the two teams meet at Dodger Stadium on July 30-31 remains to be seen, but you can bet that “…the best there ever was” will always remember the day that he faced the other “best there ever was.”

Puig tweeted this photo of he and Rivera after the first game of Wednesday’s double header.