Puzzling Pettitte
May 13, 2008, 2:24 am
Here’s a bit of text from RAB on Andy Pettitte:
Over his last four starts spanning 21.1 innings, Pettitte finds himself 0-3 with a 6.75 ERA. He’s given up 28 hits and six walks while striking out a respectable 17. Pettitte just hasn’t had it lately, and the Yanks need him to find it.
I watched Pettitte pitch today and as Ben posted, “Pettitte just hasn’t had it lately” and it’s really problematic for the Yankees. Chien-Ming Wang is the ace and Pettitte is his right hand man. If Pettitte doesn’t go, the Yankee rotation becomes a questionable assortment of inexperienced kids and one particularly old man (not that Pettitte is a vision of youth himself). Pettitte’s best aspect is his reliability and recently, he just hasn’t been anything close to that. He’s falling behind in counts and its forcing him to be too hittable.
Hopefully, he’ll rebound sooner rather than later. The Yankees are having enough trouble hitting (no A-Rod or Jorge) and if they have to worry about every rotation spot outside of Chien-Ming Wang (Mike Mussina, besides his string of successful starts, isn’t a guarantee), then that’s simply unacceptable and will make it that much harder for the club to claw themselves out of the AL East’s doghouse.
The Yankees are struggling in all aspects of the game and can’t compensate for one weakness by excelling in another area. Their starting rotation has only one consistent pitcher – Wang. Pettitte has been sloppy lately, Moose is up and down, Rasner looked decent but based on his history you can’t expect very much from him, Kennedy will be back soon and who knows what he’s going to be like.
If the offense would start scoring 5 runs a game, the team could overcome the near complete lack of pitching. If the team’s defense improved, fewer runs would score, taking pressure off the pitchers and the hitters a bit. Wilson Betemit’s stint on the DL will help and if Giambi and Abreu could see less playing time we’d be in better shape, but then you’ll miss out on their bats.
It’s a viscous cycle and one without any good answers in sight for the Yankees this season. The best we can do is hope the injury bug goes away, Posada, A-Rod and others come back and that the erratic players start playing like they should.
Hopefully, with A-Rod back next week and strong start from IPK this weekend, we could right the ship a bit (offensively and pitching-wise) and get back on track before the Red Sox run away with a lead.
while this season seems to be on the brink of disaster let me remind you guys on this day las year we where 17-19 and 8 games out + we had a-rod and jorge. It is still early and no one has put a big dent in the al east thanks to the twins this weekend. As yank fans we are very spoiled so if we are not scoring 20 runs a game and pitching shutouts the sky is falling(atleast thats how i feel). the yanks are going to struggle. However with a consistant blend of youth and vets wining is not far.
btw how do i put a pic up like you guys
^i think you might have to register with wordpress, but i’m not sure actually (it’s been a while since i put that pic up there). i agree on that statement regarding the yankees and their record. there’s a lot of baseball to be played and the team was hitting nothing at this time last year (except for a-rod).