After Mariano Rivera’s perfect ninth inning last night, his dominant eighth save of the year, Joe Torre quipped that the Yankee closer was the Comeback Player of the Year.

Such has the seven-time All-Star’s dominance been that what he’d been doing this year – falling from nearly perfect to merely good – passes for a slump.

If last night were any indicator, the slump may be over. A night after allowing Texas a run in the ninth, he put the Rangers down in order to close out a 4-3 win.

He got Kevin Mench to pop up with 96 mph heat, and got back to the unhittable form that the Yanks are used to seeing.

“I wanted to be there, and I had an opportunity to be in there and make my pitches,” Rivera said. “That’s the situation I’ll pitch most of the time, so I wanted [to come through].

“I was under control, I made good pitches and I hit my spots. If I get more pitching, I hit my spots better.”

Rivera has allowed 20 hits and six earned runs in 18 innings – far too many scores and far too few frames. After working three straight days, he was idle for three more before allowing a run on Tuesday. The rust has taken a toll.

“It’s been tough – pitching twice a week ain’t going to do it,” said Rivera, who admitted he’s had trouble locating his fastball away, and has left it out over the plate.

“But we’ve been winning. It’s not about myself. It’s about the team. I just have to make sure I make my pitches.”

Rivera – who had a career-best 1.38 ERA last year – is at 3.00 now. He hasn’t had an ERA over 2.00 since 2002, not over 3.00 since his rookie season. Coming into last night, his strikeouts per nine innings ratio was only 4.24, just over half his career average of 8.04. His hits/nine innings are 10.59, far more than his career 7.10.

“At times he goes backwards instead of staying tall, trying to get [the ball] to move a little bit more than he needs to,” said catcher Jorge Posada.

“Mo gets better as the summer rolls around. The more he pitches, the more pinpoint control he gets, and the better his stuff is.”

It was good enough in the ninth when he got Phil Nevin to fly to center, and Hank Blalock to chase a pitch high and away, before retiring Mench.

“Comeback Player of the Year,” Torre joked. “He threw the ball really well. It’s been feast or famine with him. He either pitches three days in a row or he gets three days off. We’ll just have to find a little better schedule.”

Pitching coach Ron Guidry acknowledged, “When pitchers try to make too perfect a pitch, we don’t throw it as good as we should.”