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1. Andy Pettitte has so often been the best supporting actor on the Yankees. Never the ace, but never just a hanger on. He wasn’t overlooked as much as overshadowed. He pitched behind Jack McDowell and David Cone as a rookie in 1995. Dwight Gooden pitched a no-hitter in 1996, David Wells a perfect game in 1998 and Cone a perfect game in 1999. Also in 1999, Roger Clemens came along, father figure, friend and idol to Pettitte. Hideki Irabu, Orlando Hernandez and Jose Contreras brought foreign intrigue. Joba Chamberlain, Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy were the next chapter. Last year Mike Mussina won 20 games for the first time.
Even last offseason, Pettitte became an afterthought following the signings of presumptive Nos. 1-2 starters, CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. The late acquisition of Mark Teixeira motivated the Yanks to lower their offer to Pettitte, asking him to take a paycut from $16 million to $5 million with incentives. In the end, Pettitte wanted to come back bad enough that he took the salary and bet on himself that he would reach all the innings and roster day incentives that would total another $6.5 million. And it sure looks as if he is going to reach most, if not all of those incentives.
He also is going to further his reputation as kind of the Yankees’ pitching version of Tommy Henrich: Old Reliable. Wind him up and he gives you 30-plus starts, 200-plus innings and 13-plus wins.
Pettitte has definitely had his Almost Famous moments, notably his winning 1-0 duel against John Smoltz in Game 5 of the 1996 World Series. He had another yesterday, going two outs into the seventh inning with a perfect game before Jerry Hairston booted a ball. So he just had to settle for another win, No. 227 in his career, No. 12 on this season. Sometimes the best supporting actor steals the show.
As the Yanks move toward another meaningful October, here is Pettitte again filling the role of Old Reliable. His association with HGH and Clemens is going to hurt his legacy. But I suspect around the Bronx, Pettitte will remain beloved for being a metronome of consistency.
2. You know what I found fascinating about Pettitte’s performance against the Orioles? I don’t remember the gun showing a fastball reading in the 90s. Pettitte pitched with his fastball mainly in the 85-89 mph range. He never was a big heat guy, but Pettitte has thrown in the low-90s during his career.
What stood out in this game was just how terrific his breaking ball and location were. One of his key early mentors was Jimmy Key, and this looked more like something from Key’s vintage collection.
And that made me wonder if Pettitte, 37 now, has a few more seasons left in which he relies more on finesse and savvy than ever before. If he does, Pettitte has a chance to push toward 250-plus wins. That won’t get him into Cooperstown because he is missing elite greatness and he has that HGH black stain. But Pettitte has a chance here to add a few more flourishes to a brilliant career.
3. Joba Chamberlain is 34th in the AL in innings pitched. Obviously it is not a staggering total. But there are times when all the noise makes it sound as if Chamberlain has thrown about 15 innings this year.
Again, it might turn out that Chamberlain really is a reliever because of his temperament or that no amount of restraint now will be able to protect a max-effort guy such as Chamberlain from injury. But I will continue to believe that the real level of negligence would have been if the Yankees had no plan. The durability of Sabathia, Burnett and Pettitte combined with the Yanks’ comfortable AL East lead has allowed the Yankees to be cautious in building Joba’s innings.
Protecting arms throughout professional baseball is standard operating procedure. In the last week, for example, the Phillies shut down their No. 1 pitching prospect Kyle Drabek because they thought he had thrown enough this year already.
I do not know if the Yankees have created an ideal plan to try to have their cake and eat it, too, by finding a way to protect Chamberlain’s innings total while having him in the rotation all year. But I do strongly believe that simply letting him throw 200-ish innings this year — while satisfying the red meat crowd — would have been wrong.