There’s them fightin’ words:  Jimmy Rollins stated today that, well, yeah, he could hit Mariano.

Not an accusation you want to be making lightly.

First things first:  Rollins has had exactly two ABs against the great Mariano, and he has not recorded a hit.  Might he hit Rivera some time in the future?  Sure, it could happen, but to be making such a statement without, you know, actual proof to back it up?

That might fly in Philly.

Not in New York.

See, the thing here is that Mariano Rivera isn’t just a good closer.  He’s got a career postseason ERA of 0.76.  That might not be a huge deal if, say, he was only pitching in his second postseason ever and had only appeared in two LDS games, but that’s not the situation.

Instead, we’re looking at a pitcher who, with the exception of 2008, has appeared in every postseason since and including 1995.  That’s thirteen postseasons, seven now which have gone all three rounds (and eight total that went past the first round), and comes to a total of 130 IP.

To put that in perspective, Phil Hughes pitched 86 innings this season–and that includes the starts he made.

Mariano Rivera has pitched so many postseason innings that it could easily equate to a full season of relief work, or even the starting workload of a young pitcher–in 2008, Joba Chamberlain pitched about 100 innings, even.

We’re not talking about flash-in-the-pan success.

We’re talking about success that has lasted so long that when Rivera made his first postseason appearance, I was in Ms. C’s fourth-grade classroom learning the basics of long division.

Rollins stated in this ESPN article that he thought, during Rivera’s 39-pitch appearance on Thursday, that he “saw some things”, and that he has a game plan.

Sure.  That’s what every hitter would like to think.

Yet ESPN offered this nugget:

Just out of curiosity, we took a look at how Rivera has fared in the World Series in all his appearances after the NL team saw him for the first time. It’s safe to say he wasn’t exactly Jay Witasick. Rivera’s career ERA in those outings is 1.72.

It’d be foolish to expect any ballplayer not named Jeter or Rivera to simply go out there and play without trash-talking, not in today’s game, but perhaps this is why Jeter and Mariano have transcended the way they have.

They’re the ones, after all, that seem to get it:  Actions still speak louder than words.

Rollins can game plan all he wants.

Until he hits Rivera, his words are just that–empty words.

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