Pettitte Shines Again

When Andy Pettitte decided to eschew retirement and return to the Yankees for $16M this season, it freed the Yankees from their desperate quest to land Johan Santana. Today, the two pitchers met up for the second time this season and Pettitte came out on top.

My feelings on the Santana talks are well documented. He's still an ace, but he's slipping and he's not going to get any better from here on out. In this game, he got the typical treatment ace pitchers have gotten from the Bombers for the past 12 years, and he suffered the same fate. He wasn't around late in the game. The Yanks worked the count against him and ran up his pitch count to over 110 in his 6 innings of work, battled their way to 4 walks (3 of which scored), and did just enough to beat him.

Meanwhile, Pettitte was dominant. He got into one jam, in the bottom of the fifth the Mets had Jose Reyes on second, Damien Easley on first and David Wright at the plate. On a 3-2 count, Pettitte used an inside pickoff move, Cano timed his break to the bag perfectly and the Reyes was caught off second to end the inning. Simply an unforgivable base-running blunder. The Yanks would add another run in the top of the sixth and after a 52-minute rain delay, Wright homered to make the game 3-2. What could have been.

Tim McCarver and Joe Buck spent a good deal of time mocking the Yankees for moving Joba to the rotation, which is funny considering they didn't even take the time to research the decision and figure out the logic behind it. They also talked about how the Yanks are struggling to get the ball to Mo with a lead. This was made even more comical by a graphic Fox showed when Rivera did get into the game, with a 1 run lead. The Yanks are 35-1 this season when leading after 6 innings. The best record in the league.

Player of The Game: I'm going with Farnsworth. He went through Easley, Wright and Beltran on 11 pitches for a clean 8th inning.
Team Record: 44-37
Damon: Nothing.