The answer: very, very, very, very good.

I could post every day about Mariano Rivera and never run out of great things to say about him. Trying to sum up all of his attributes in a single post is impossible, so I thought I’d tackle one thing–one stat, one game, one quote, one anything–in a 954-part series. (Mo has now pitched in 954 games.) Future posts may come at any time. Today’s focus: Mo’s WHIP.

This afternoon Mariano Rivera set down the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim 1-2-3 to preserve a 10-6 victory for the Yanks. The win put the Yanks back to 25 games over .500 and made Javier Vazquez only the 3rd active pitcher to beat all 30 MLB teams (joining Moyer and Zito).

Mariano Rivera has now pitched a total of 1,126.67 innings in his regular-season career. During that time, he has given up 865 hits and allowed 262 walks. Combined, that is 1,127 hits and walks allowed. His WHIP, or the number of walks and hits allowed per inning, is now 1.0003. One more out, and he’ll be at 1. Two more outs, and he’ll be below 1. The best relievers often have WHIPs under 1 in a single season. But to do it over a career? The following list shows the top 10 WHIPs for all pitchers with at least 1,000 innings pitched (taken from B-R).

1. Addie Joss 0.9678
2. Ed Walsh 0.9996
3. Mariano Rivera 1.0003
4. Monte Ward 1.0435
5. Pedro Martinez 1.0544
6. Trevor Hoffman 1.0578
7. Christy Mathewson 1.0581
8. Walter Johnson 1.0612
9. Mordecai Brown 1.0658
10. Charlie Sweeney 1.0673

Addie Joss pitched from 1902-1910. Ed Walsh pitched from 1904-1917. These pitchers played in the Dead Ball Era, with spitballs and ridiculously expansive outfield dimensions, where the league ERA was frequently less than 3.00. Both players also had careers cut short by injury or death, preventing their stats from degrading with their advancing ages.

Mariano Rivera, who has pitched through the entirety of the Steroids Era, is two outs away from joining the company of Joss and Walsh with sub-1 WHIPs. And if Mo can retire the next three batters without giving up a hit or a walk, he’ll pass “Big Ed” Walsh to attain the 2nd lowest WHIP of all time.

Two side notes that will likely be the subject of future “How Great Is Mo?” posts:
Mariano Rivera WHIP as a reliever is 0.969.
Mariano River’s postseason WHIP is 0.773.