"There's going to come a day.

Seriously, as hard as it is to believe, there's going to come a day when Mariano Rivera is no longer invincible, no longer unhittable, no longer feared by the guys in the other dugout, and no longer the best closer in the game. Is that day coming?

This is not meant to be alarmist. Sure, Rivera has not gotten the job done in each of the Yankees' last two games, blowing a save in Boston on Sunday night and absorbing the loss at the Stadium tonight when he surrendered a tie-breaking two-run home run to Bobby Abreu in the ninth inning as the Yanks fell to the Los Angeels Angels, 6-4. But it's not about failing to get the job done in consecutive games. It's about Rivera being 41 years old and the simple fact that no player, no matter how great, can last forever.

"Believe me," said Abreu, who also homered off A.J. Burnett in the sixth inning, "In my opinion, Mariano's still the best closer in the game. It's hard just to make good contact against him. To hit a homer, it's something that's hard for me to believe. I know I've got a bat and he's a pitcher, anything can happen, but realistically, let me tell you, it's not easy."

But not impossible, which is what it seemed like for opponents, for so long. You know this. When Rivera entered a game, be it to protect a lead, or maintain a tie at home so the Yankees could win in walk-off fashion in the bottom of the inning, it just seemed as Abreu described it. Rivera was the equivalent to a victory cigar for Yankee fans. Seeing him enter a game meant one thing and one thing only. That victory was imminent. Go ahead and light it up.

And it still seems that way. Most of the time.

On Sunday night, at Fenway Park, you probably cut Rivera slack because, well, the Red Sox have gotten to Rivera before. Fourteen times (16 if you count postseason). They are the one team that seems to nick him every once in a while. So when Marco Scutaro doubled high off the wall to lead off the inning and Dustin Pedroia smashed a line-drive, sacrifice fly to left field to tie the game, and you listened to Rivera say afterward, "It happens. This is baseball. We need to move on." You nodded your head."