Sunday, October 24, 2010
The Pettitte Question
The Yanks want Andy Pettitte back. Pettitte still wants to pitch, but he's been torn between commitments to the game and commitments to his family for some time. I've often wondered why the Yankees haven't considered doing a partial season deal with Pettitte the way they did with Clemens those last couple years when he was running on steroid fumes. Why not let Andy join the team in May or June rather than February for Spring Training? This would give him more time with his family and also help keep him fresher. He's not getting any younger.
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8 comments:
I like that idea for Pettitte. He has given so much to this team. I still don't understand why he wasn't our second pitcher for this series.
I can't believe the season is over. The Yanks really looked awful in that last game.... There is always next year:)
I think the decision to pitch Pettitte third instead of second cost us the series. Granted, with the offense as anemic as it was, maybe it wouldn't have mattered. But we may have left Texas with a 2-0 series lead had Pettitte pitched game two. Instead we wasted his effort since we can't hit Cliff Lee anyway.
Pitching Pettitte second might have made the difference, but who knows. Bottom line is we knew we needed strong performances out of CC, Hughes and Pettitte because AJ was unreliable, and only Pettitte pitched well. Add the bad offense, like you said, and we're lucky we made it to six games.
It's easy to say now that game 3 was a no-win, so we should have started Hughes (or even AJ) in that game, but Hughes was lights out in the ALDS. Imagine if Lee had turned in a lousy start by his standards (something like 6 IP, 4 R) and Hughes or AJ started and gave the game away. We would have blown a chance to beat Lee.
Also, we only scored 2 runs in game 2. Do we win that game (in Texas) if Pettitte starts and pitches as well as he did in game 3 (7 IP, 2 R)? Probably not, considering how our relief pitching fell apart in this series.
When your starters turn in horrible performance and your hitters can't drive in runs or even work counts, you're not going to win a playoff series no matter how you align the rotation.
Switching to some happier thoughts, thanks for doing what you do on this site. I've enjoyed coming here all season and look forward to another year's worth of hard-hitting RJG analysis and reporting.
As for Pettitte, yes, give him the Clemens treatment and work out whatever schedule he wants. We need him back whether or not we sign Lee.
Okay, so I was gone for much of the series and only caught the last couple games, so seeing Pettitte pitch 3rd seemed really odd to me, but I figured there must have been something I missed that would make pitching him 3rd necessary. It looks like I missed nothing, and it was just a terrible idea. Am I right?
Thanks, Rich. We really appreciate that.
Now they're saying Pettitte was hurt and that's why they had to pitch him third, to give him more time off between the ALDS and ALCS.
"Now they're saying Pettitte was hurt and that's why they had to pitch him third, to give him more time off between the ALDS and ALCS."
Not only that, but reading between the lines I think that Andy is the sole reason they didn't go with a 3 man rotation again.
And I'm with the "give him whatever he wants to bring him back" crowd. If he doesn't want to show up till May or June, that's fine with me.
Having to go with Hughes on short rest (for the first time in his career, I believe) was another downside to a 3-man rotation. It just wasn't practical.
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