For those of you who forgot to pick up the tabloids this morning, let me bring you up to speed on the big story:

Mariano Rivera is a choker.

It’s time for the Yankees to do better.

They have to do better.

Because they aren’t going to win with a closer who can’t get the job done when it counts.

Yes, there will be much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments over Rivera’s uncharacteristic failures of late. And there is some justification. He’s blown four of his last six saves, and yesterday appeared to melt down on the mound, giving up five runs on three hits, three walks, and an error while getting only two outs.

This sort of thing simply doesn’t happen to the pitcher thought of by many as the greatest reliever in baseball history and the most important piece in the Torre-era Yankee dynasty. Mariano Rivera has been well nigh invulnerable.

Crediting his achievements to mystical powers, though, and his disasters to them deserting him, does Rivera a disservice. His success is the result of talent, hard work and a bit of luck; his failures, it follows, should like those of anyone be ascribed to failure of talent, laziness, and/or bad luck.

It’s possible that Rivera’s string of bad fortune has resulted from the Yankees’ dogged refusal to leave a burnt goat on the Yankee Stadium mound for the spirits of Ruth, DiMaggio, and Mantle. Failing that, Rivera’s bad run might be the result of one or several of the following problems. In roughly descending order of likelihood, Rivera may have:

* Been unlucky. It’s difficult to tell how Alex Rodriguez booting a double-play ball with one out, the bases loaded, and the Yankees up by one reflects badly on Rivera. Similarly, while Rivera did blow two saves in last year’s American League Championship Series, he didn’t pitch badly. The Yankee closer pitches to contact, and has success with it; sometimes balls are going to fall in. It’s nothing to get exercised over.

* Been facing a lineup full of fine hitters who can hit any pitcher.

There’s nothing at all unusual about giving up runs to a lineup whose eighth hitter won the 2003 AL batting title and whose ninth hitter had a .373 OBA last year. Rivera’s failure, it should be remembered, can also be looked at as the Red Sox’ success.

* Lost movement on his pitch. As remarkably talented as Rivera is – he’s dominated the game for a decade throwing one pitch – there’s not a lot to distinguish his physical gifts from those of dozens of fringe major leaguers. He throws hard, but not spectacularly so, and has fine, but not pinpoint command; the physical skill that separates him from someone like Felix Rodriguez is the movement on his cut fastball. For years, he’s just thrown it down the middle and watched it move into an area of the strike zone where a hitter can’t get a good swing at it.

Rivera is 35 years old. At this stage of his career, you have to expect that he’s going to lose a few miles per hour on his fastball and a bit of the break on his cutter. Advantages like those don’t work in a linear fashion; losing 2 mph can turn an unhittable pitch into a juicy one. This can be compensated for in a variety of ways – learning a new pitch or a new arm angle, for instance.

* Injured himself. Is Rivera hurt? A man of Rivera’s size cannot be expected to throw 93 mph cut fastballs indefinitely without physical consequence.

* Become soft and lazy. Rivera did sign a fat $21 million contract last year. I mention this only because I think that as unlikely as it is, it’s still more plausible than the next possibility.

* Lost his confidence. One of the differences between a great player and a good one is confidence; Rivera, who takes the good and the bad equally in stride, is about as confident a ballplayer as anyone’s ever seen. Might Rivera have lost his belief in his own ability to shut hitters down? Everything we know about him suggests this is, to say the least, unlikely.

All told, there’s no reason to think right now that anything’s profoundly wrong with Rivera. Until he does something other than have a few bad innings spread out over seven months, he should still be considered the best relief pitcher in the game.

One is free to think that the Red Sox have exerted a mystical spell on him, or that he has lost all of his ability. One is also free to think that he hasn’t yet adjusted to the loss of some of his velocity and movement with age, that he’s faltered against outstanding hitters, and that a few plays haven’t gone his way, leading to a bad run that will be forgotten by this time next month. I think the answer is really rather obvious.

And now back to that other column you were reading.

Whatever the explanation for Rivera’s newfound mortality, the Yankees need to do something and they need to do it quickly.

The numbers don’t lie. Rivera is on pace to finish the year with 10.80 ERA in 90 innings, which would rank by more than two full runs as the worst ERA in history for a pitcher with that heavy a workload.

Kerry Ligtenberg and Billy Koch are available. They have 211 career saves between them. Jose Mesa, who has 292 career saves-not many fewer than Rivera-is probably available in trade. Tanyon Sturtze is right there in the Yankee bullpen.

It’s time for the Yankees to do what’s right. It’s time for them to make a move.

Because without a man to whom Joe Torre can entrust the game in the ninth inning, this Yankees team is headed fast down a road to nowhere.