Short rest leads to Burnett's short start
Girardi's pitching plan opening opportunity for Phillies to make a miracle comeback
Hold on, let me correct that for you, as anyone that's been watching the Yankees/baseball with any sort of interest knows:
PHILADELPHIA -- The chance to win a World Series-clinching Game 5 for the New York Yankees is meant for someone with XXL nerves. A.J. Burnett, who lasted all of six outs in Monday night's meltdown, was a size "small."
It turns out the moment was too much -- way too much -- for the Yankees' No. 2 starter.
Yup, just stick that bullshit "choker" label on AJ Burnett. Not like he pitched totally awesome in Game 2 of the Series, which, while not an ACTUAL must-win, was kind of close to one.
Also, if it was supposedly his nerves that caused him to suck, then really, wouldn't it not have mattered if he pitched on normal, short, or 5035829804968 days' rest?
This is why the Philadelphia Phillies, 8-6 winners on a chilled November night, have more than a pulse in this Series; they have an opportunity to pull off a baseball miracle.
Hmmm. May I remind you that these are some excerpts from what you wrote after Game 4, Gene?:
New York is turning a potential classic into a ho-hum romp toward a 27th title
For the sake of a Series predicted to be an actual Fall Classic, it would be nice if the Phillies could somehow push this to a seventh game. But, sigh, I'm not holding my breath.
WAAAAH THE YANKEES ARE GONNA WIN! Also, were you paying attention? The games were really pretty good. There was a pitchers' duel for the first two games, and with these two teams, that's pretty crazy. Even though it was for the team I was rooting against, watching Cliff Lee utterly dominate was kind of awesome. The third game had the Yankees coming back from a 3-0 hole and, of all people, the PITCHER from the AMERICAN LEAGUE TEAM tying the game. The fourth game was just insane. Did you miss the guy stealing two bases on one play?!?!?!
Also, since you made such a big fucking deal about Yankee fans wanting to get on A-Rod's ass after Game 2 because of his past bad performances, may I remind you that the Yankees did something quite a bit worse than blowing a 3-1 series lead a few years ago? I think most Yankee fans recognized that this team was really damn good and probably should win the World Series, but I also think all but the cockiest and dumbest Yankee fans were waiting to pop the champagne until the twenty-seventh out was made in the fourth Yankee win of the series, recognizing that the Phillies were a really darn good team, too, and with the ghost of the Year of Great Evil in the back of their minds.
And Burnett?
"I had no hope tonight," he said.
Well that's at least right.
The Phillies played their last game of the year in Citizens Bank Park, but they haven't played their last game of the postseason. Instead, they tossed Burnett into the garbage disposal, flipped the switch and ground him up for six runs in two-plus innings.
"I had a chance to do something special tonight and I failed and I let a lot of guys in here down and I let a city down," said Burnett, who, to his credit, stood in front of his locker and answered every question.
Holy crap, how did I not know Burnett said that he let the city down?! Now I just feel sorry for the guy.
So back to New York we go for at least one more game and, who knows, maybe a deciding seventh. And wouldn't that be something.
I guess. You know who would be pitching in that seventh game for the Phillies? Maybe Cole Hamels, who had awful luck and a below-average year in 2009, sucked through the playoffs, and said he wanted the season to be over after his Game 3 start. Maybe J.A. Happ, who hadn't started since the NLDS and who had fared poorly there. Maybe Cliff Lee on two days' rest, after a game where he gave up five runs in seven innings when the bottom of the opposing order consisted of Brett Gardner, Jose Molina, and a pitcher.
But first things first, such as asking the same question we asked days before Burnett took the mound for Game 5 and before Andy Pettitte was all but guaranteed the Game 6 start: What is Yankees manager Joe Girardi thinking?
He's thinking that he only has three starters that should be starting in this World Series. He's right.
Girardi started Burnett on three days' rest. He got away with it when CC Sabathia pitched well in Game 4, but the decision exploded in the Yankees' face when Burnett gave it a short-rest go. Burnett isn't Sabathia.
You're right. One's a black guy, one is white. CC is from California; AJ is from Arkansas. I could go on for a while.
In fact, he was barely Burnett in Monday night's no-show.
Here's where you're totally missing it, Gene (can I call you Gene? Cool.). Burnett was absolutely Burnett in Game 5. If you've been watching Yankees baseball for any amount of time, you know it is totally like him to make you drool with a brilliant performance where he's damn near untouchable, and then follow it up with a game where he walks 42 guys and gives up 38 home runs. That's just what he does. And no, it doesn't matter who's behind the plate.
"I just couldn't get the ball where I wanted to," said Burnett, whose fastball spent too much time over the chunky part of the plate and whose curveball arrived with a "Hit Me" invitation attached.
Both Girardi and Burnett insisted the short rest wasn't the reason for Burnett's struggles.
"No, I don't think there was any correlation," Girardi said.
"I felt strong, I felt great," Burnett said. "I just didn't get it done, man."
Yeah. They're right. What's your point?
Burnett does have a history of huge performance swings,
DING DING DING! DING DING DING DING DING, GODDAMN IT! You should have started to write this article, realized this, and stopped writing this article.
but don't the odds for something forgettable increase on fewer days' rest?
No. Well, I should revise that: If you're being run absolutely ragged like CC last year by the Brewers when you've already pitched like 250 innings that year, it might. But one or two short rest starts in the World Fucking Series? No.
And is it a good thing when you begin the biggest start of your career by giving up a liner to Jimmy Rollins on a 1-2 pitch? Then follow it up by nearly breaking every small bone in Shane Victorino's right hand? Then throwing a first-pitch dinger to home run machine Chase Utley? Then walking Ryan Howard, who entered the game with a sub-Mendoza Line batting average?
I'll answer that one: no.
Again, if you've seen a bad AJ start, you would know these all happen in them, minus ~the dramatics~. But no, they are not particularly good things. I don't think anyone would say they were.
Also, Ryan Howard is a very dangerous hitter. I know he had like fifteen bazillion strikeouts in the World Series, and it definitely wasn't a good series for him, but he had a higher OPS there than Mark Teixeira and one only three points lower than Jorge Posada. He did better than Jimmy Rollins and Shane Victorino. Just because he'd been struggling didn't mean he wasn't going to absolutely crush a bad pitch or whatever, especially off a righty, who he hits much better than lefties (like, you know, Andy Pettitte and CC Sabathia, starters of the last two games).
Anyway, it was 3-0 Phillies before Burnett even recorded an out.
Actually, it was 3-1 Phillies, but sure, why bother to get those dumb things called "facts" right?
Burnett eventually got out of the first inning and survived a two-out walk to Rollins in the second inning, then boarded the Disaster Express in the third.
Walk to Utley … walk to Howard … RBI single by Jayson Werth … RBI single by Raul Ibanez … walk of shame to Yankees dugout. Girardi had seen enough and mercifully ended Burnett's night after a 53-pitch (only 28 for strikes), 4-hit, 4-walk, 6-run, 2-strikeout, 1-hit-by-pitch outing.
"When you don't throw strikes, that's what the outcome is going to be," Burnett said.
Again, this is all Bad AJ shit. I mean, this was a REALLY BAD AJ start, but he hit two guys and walked five or six in that one-run performance against the Twins (granted, it was in more innings).
There was always a danger this could happen. Pitching on three days' rest is a dicey thing,
Goddamn it. Not if it's ONE TIME. Not even if it's TWO TIMES.
and Girardi knew it. The numbers said Burnett could handle it (he was 3-0 with a 1.64 ERA on short rest),
Oh look! Numbers, facts, stats!!!!!!! Those numbers are pretty awesome. They're also a pretty small sample size, like so small it basically doesn't count other than to say sure, he could handle it and wouldn't totally blow up Al-Leiter-in-Game-6-of-the-1999-NLCS-style.
but they didn't say anything about combining three days' rest with the pressures of a World Series Game 5 on the road.
Yessss I love talking about intangibles.
You could tell Burnett might be in trouble as early as Sunday night, when he admitted he couldn't treat his Game 5 appearance as another start. You had to admire his honesty, but it was a verbal red flag.
"I try not to think about it too much, but you can't help not to," he said after Monday night's game.
He did seem nervy. But hell, he kept talking about his Game 2 start and he was fantastic there. Again, this was all a case of AJ bein' AJ. And, again, if he was really totally nervous about the start, it wouldn't have mattered if he was on full rest!
Burnett won Game 2, pitching spectacularly (7 innings, 1 run, 9 strikeouts, 2 walks). But that was at Yankee Stadium. And it wasn't on three days' rest or with the opportunity to close out the Series or against Phillies ace Cliff Lee.
What does the opposing pitcher have anything to do with it? And if it did, fine, sure, he wasn't going up against Cliff Lee in Game 2. He was only going up against Pedro Martinez in New York while being down 0-1 in the Series. Pedro 2009 is obviously not the ridiculous peak Pedro of 2000 or so, but he was pitching well and more importantly, if you're speaking about the pressures of facing the opposing pitcher, don't you think that if any Yankee pitcher lost to Pedro, they would have been absolutely torn apart by the press?
Lee gave up five runs over seven-plus innings and 112 pitches -- and that was on full rest. If anything, it shows how difficult it is to face high-powered lineups on fewer days of rest.
No, it showed that Cliff Lee wasn't nearly as sharp in Game 5 as he was in Game 1; that would have been impossible. He's a very good pitcher, but did you think he would have kept up that 0.52 or whatever it was prior to that game postseason ERA forever? Here are the Yankee hitters and their slash lines against Cliffy:
Jeter .407/.467/.519/.985 (30 PA)
Teixeira .391/.462/.696/1.157 (26 PA)
Swisher .333/.458/.444/.903 (24 PA)
Damon .091/.130/.091/.221 (23 PA)
Posada .283/.273/.667/.939 (22 PA)*
A-Rod .333/.450/.733/1.183 (20 PA)
Cano .222/.263/.222/.485 (19 PA)
Matsui .294/.368/.412/.780 (19 PA)
Melky .273/.333/.545/.879 (12 PA)
So as you see, most of them hit him pretty well, save Damon (who, hmmmm, Fox was the only one they talked about with regard to past performance against Lee. Funnily enough, without looking it up, I think Johnny was actually one of the few with a hit against Cliff in Game 1) and Cano. Heck, even Molina had a .909 OPS against the guy, albeit in 11 at-bats. Gardner was .800 in 6 at-bats. I'm not sure how many of these numbers were compiled in 2007 or earlier, when the awesome Cliff Lee we see today and saw in 2008 didn't exist, but these are generally very good numbers, albeit in a SSS.
Girardi hasn't made an official announcement about his Game 6 starter, but he's using all the same managerspeak he used before naming Burnett. In other words, he's going to start 37-year-old Pettitte on three days' rest against a fully rested Pedro Martinez. This is the same Pettitte who admitted after his Game 3 start that he had struggled.
Agh. For one thing, here are the days between starts for Pedro when he was with the Phillies: 5, 4, 4, 5, 4, 4, 5, 10. His last start of the season was on September 30 (and in his last two starts of the season, he threw a combined seven innings), and the next time he pitched was October 16. The next time after that, October 29. So he wasn't on a schedule of regular rest pretty much the entire season and especially the postseason. I think he complained about something hurting him at some point, too, and, IMO, he's way too proud - and managers are way too respectful of him - to go to the bullpen, even at this point in his career. He was frail back when he was one of the awesomest pitchers to ever live; he might still know how to pitch, but he's not that guy any more. And Pettitte said he had nothing because of the rain delay - not that what he said necessarily means anything, he could have been just making that up, and we'll never know how he would have pitched without the rain delay.
"You know, if Andy feels good, he's going to go on Wednesday," Girardi said late Monday night. "This is something we talked about all throughout. We check with our guys. If he feels good, he's going."
Girardi tried to step on the Phillies' throat with Burnett rather than, say, Chad Gaudin.
How is this the wrong move? It's the World Series. You don't throw games. If something gives you a much higher probability to win, you go with that something. In general, AJ Burnett, while not the most reliable pitcher in the world, gives you a much better probability to win a game than Chad Gaudin.
He hoped he could get the Game 2 Burnett. Instead, he got the Burnett who couldn't throw strikes.
Don't you think that if Girardi knew how to get the Burnett that showed up in Game 2, he would have done whatever possible to get him?! And vice-versa, if Girardi knew Burnett was going to utterly implode, don't you think he would have tried to avoid that?
Now he's going to bypass Gaudin again. It isn't a surprise -- Gaudin, who didn't lose any of his six Yankees starts this season (he was 2-0), was phased out of the rotation weeks ago.
"The interesting thing is Chad hasn't thrown much in the last month, and that's a difficult spot to put him in," Girardi said.
Gaudin hadn't started a game since September 28. That was over a month before the World Series. I am quite sure, based on general impression and things the players and pitchers themselves said, that Girardi let the pitchers know he was going with a three-man rotation, and that some of the guys would have to have a start or two on short rest if they were lucky enough to get to the World Series. CC, AJ, and Andy were all well-rested throughout the last through weeks of the regular season. It's not like he was springing this on them.
Also, rather unsurprisingly, Gene's stats are pretty much out of context, as one of Gaudin's wins came in relief, and here are his starts with the Yankees.
8/19 vs. Oakland: 4.1 IP, 0 ER, 5 K, 5 BB
He got pulled with the bases loaded and one out in this game, when the Yankees had a 3-0 lead; Aceves came in and got a DP.
9/3 vs. Toronto: 3.2 IP, 3 ER, 2 K, 3 BB
9/8 vs. Tampa Bay: 6 IP, 1 ER, 6 K, 2 BB
9/16 vs. Toronto: 5.2 IP, 3 ER, 2 K, 1 BB
9/22 vs. Anaheim: 4.2 IP, 2 ER, 3 K, 2 BB
9/28 vs. Kansas City: 6.2 IP, 2 ER, 5 K, 2 BB
The only start I would get excited about in there was the one against Tampa Bay (and just for interesting facts' sake, he also had a really good start against Texas in interleague when he was still with the Padres - 8 IP, 0 R/ER, 1 H, 9 K, 2 BB - and a horrible start against Anaheim - 3 IP, 8 R/ER, 10 H, 1 K, 0 BB, 2 HR. He had both an okay and a very good start against Seattle. Oh, and Texas pretty much destroyed him in a relief appearance during the infamous and extremely frustrating Game Where Swisher Bunted. [I was at the next game and listening to people still complaining about that game was pretty hilarious. Though we all got over it when the Yankees won said game I was at.] So, who knows. Oh, and one other thing I found while digging through Gaudin's stats, this game was sort of hilarious. The Diamondbacks blew a 6-0 lead, including when they were still leading 6-1 going into the bottom of the ninth? Oh, and the thing that tied the game was a three-run home run by David Eckstein?!?!?! But, I digress.). Maybe the Kansas City one, but, I mean, it's the Royals. I was happy with how he did for the Yankees - I thought he was going to out-and-out suck - but the Yankees offense was good enough that he could get away with things like those two starts against Toronto. The Yankee bullpen also had guys that could provide solid innings if he left after, say, less than five innings, when Girardi pulled him before he could get into real trouble. If he was still with the Padres when those happened? Eh.
More importantly, though,
Righties vs. Gaudin: .249/.318/.409/.728, 325 K, 116 BB (2.80 K/BB)
Lefties vs. Gaudin: .293/.389/.433/.822, 140 K, 167 BB (0.84 K/BB)
Putting this guy in Citizens' Bank Park to face the Phillies' lefty-power-hitting-heavy lineup, when he hadn't started in over a month, and had only thrown one very low-leverage inning (the bottom of the ninth in that 10-1 blowout in Anaheim) since the playoffs started, would not have been the greatest of ideas.
It's no more difficult than the spot Girardi put an overhyped and under-rested Burnett in.
Who the hell overhypes AJ Burnett? And AJ Burnett was plenty well-rested toward the end of the season and during the agonizingly long playoffs. One short rest start is not going to make the wheels come off.
It's no more difficult than the spot he'll put an under-rested Pettitte in.
It's only because he feared my wrath that he didn't add the "overhyped" thing with Andy.
Just so you know, Pettitte is 5-7 with a 4.18 ERA in 18 career short-rest starts.
If we have these stats, so does Girardi. Yet he's willing to risk the World Series on it.
AJ's (and presumably CC's) great career numbers on short rest = don't count
Pettitte's not-great career numbers on short rest = OF DIRE IMPORTANCE!!!!
Also, Andy Pettitte in the playoffs on three days' rest: 3-1, 2.88 ERA. LOOK I CAN THROW AROUND STATS OUT OF CONTEXT TOO!!!! (For clarification, obviously those numbers are great. They're also a tiny, tiny sample size, and the most recent of those starts was in 2003. Also - dammit, why do I get so distracted by random stats?! - in the first four games he started of the 1996 postseason, Pettitte gave up seven home runs. Poor baby.)
And well, Gene, if you ever did anything good, you gave me an excuse to watch this video again to see that stat. Mmmm, thank you for that. Just FYI, I got distracted for like twenty minutes watching that. So. Freaking. Hot. Um, anyway.
No team has recovered from a 3-1 Series deficit since 1985, when the Kansas City Royals beat the St. Louis Cardinals. It couldn't happen again, could it?
Of course it could happen again. It's rare, but I'll bet it happens sometime again. Heck, some day some team will probably come back from an 0-3 series hole again, too.
If it does, the Phillies' miracle comeback would be completed on the number everyone is talking about.
Three days.
ZOMG you are teh clever. Also, I know you wanted to paint the Phillies as some cute underdogs, Gene, but it wouldn't really be a "miracle."
How long until baseball and America's Next Top Model start up again so I can stop spending time on this crap?!
* How is his BA better than his OBP? Posada can't even do stats right!!!
