Something is wrong with Mariano Rivera. Not something little, but something big, something that could spell the end of his long reign as the best big-game closer in the game.

What’s more, the Yankees know that Rivera is no longer what he was; that he hasn’t been that unhittable freak, the Sandman, for quite some time.

They’ve denied it and deny it still, just as he does. But Rivera had blown two chances to close out the Red Sox in the ALCS last year. He blew the save in Game 2 of the 2005 regular season, though he ended up with the victory when Derek Jeter hit a walk-off home run. Going into Wednesday, he had blown 11 of his last 19 saves against the Red Sox, the one team the Yankees need him to beat.

And Wednesday, he not only blew the save against Boston in Game 3 of 2005 and took the "L" in the Yanks’ first loss of the season, he got taken out of the game. Afterwards, he said he couldn’t remember the last time that had happened.

Some in the crowd stood and applauded as he came off the field for the first time in most fans’ memory with outs still to get in an inning. Others booed, an astonishing lack of class coming from fans who have been carried through nearly a decade of rare excellence by Rivera’s heroics.

But the biggest shock of the afternoon wasn’t seeing Rivera get hooked in the ninth, but seeing two pitchers warming up in the Yankee pen when he took the mound at the start of the inning.

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If you needed a sign that Joe Torre and the Yankees knew something is wrong with the team’s most important player, it was the two other relievers up and throwing. From when Rivera took over from John Wettland as closer in 1997, when the stadium sound system started playing "Sandman," and Mo stalked to the mound from the bullpen, the remaining pitchers in the bullpen may as well have gone back to the clubhouse to get a head start on the post-game buffet.

If Mo was in the game, you didn’t need anyone else. He blew saves as often as Larry Bird missed free throws. And on the rare occasions when he let a lead get away, he closed out the inning.

So to see two men throwing was proof that neither Torre nor pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre were fully confident that Rivera was going to get them out of the inning, much less the game.

And he didn’t.

Mo didn’t get shelled. He never does. But he seemed reluctant to throw a strike, looking like a golfer with the yips or the short-relief answer to Rick Ankiel. He issued a walk, gave up a couple of cheap singles, was victimized by an error by A-Rod at third, and finally left, the 3-2 lead he had been handed eventually becoming a 7-4 loss.

Two or three years ago, no one would have said anything other than that such things are bound to happen sooner or later. Of course, two or three years ago, Mo wouldn’t have blown that many saves against the Sox or anyone. There would have been nothing to say.

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