GORDON Edes, the baseball col umnist from Yahoo, approached me in the Yankees clubhouse yesterday and posed this question: 1998 Yankees vs. 2009 Yankees, who would you take?
No hesitation, I took the 1998 Yankees. And not because of some intangible genius Scott Brosius has over Alex Rodriguez.
This is about starting pitching. Or, more to the point, belief that those who started for the 1998 Yankees were all money pitchers, all guys you were fully comfortable working in October to open a series or pitch a decisive game or pitch with their team trailing in the series.
David Cone, Orlando Hernandez, the younger version of Andy Pettitte and David Wells all had iron stomachs. Over the long season, El Duque or Wells could disappear mentally on you, but not in October. In October, they could execute pitch after pitch.
So far, so good for the Yankees’ current group. But, forgive me if I must see more than three games against the Justin Morneau-less Twins to feel like the Yankees’ current rotation stands with the dynasty gang.
At the least, we need to wait until after the ALCS to truly begin to know what we think about the big-game panache of CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and this version of Pettitte.
Because the Angels are essentially the Twins on — metaphorically speaking only — steroids. They philosophically are linked by how they methodically bring players through their system, stick with those players and teach those players an aggressive fashion in which to play. But the Yankees always beat the Twins while having great difficulty with the Angels.
Perhaps that is the $50 million-ish extra in payroll the Angels could afford to import a Torii Hunter, Vlad Guerrero or Scott Kazmir when necessary. The end result includes the Angels having a longer lineup than Minnesota. The Angels have eight players with 400 plate appearances who had a .290 or better batting average plus Juan Rivera at .287. In addition, true to their aggressive bent, the Angels were the only major league team to have six players in double-digits in steals.
So there are unlikely to be any Nick Punto-like soft touches around this time.
Thus, Sabathia, Burnett and Pettitte are about to have the degree of difficulty rise significantly from round one to round two of these playoffs. And we are going to find out about if they have iron stomachs or not.
In the first round, Sabathia, Burnett and Pettitte combined to allow just three runs over 19 1/3 innings as each worked at least six innings and allowed one run. The last time the Yankees had starters pitch three consecutive games and work at least six innings each while permitting one or fewer runs was the 2003 division series. That also was against the Twins, and Pettitte, Roger Clemens and Wells combined to allow three runs in 21 2/3 innings in Games 2, 3 and 4.
The degree of difficulty then rose dramatically, and the Yankees found themselves in a seven-game mano a mano with the Red Sox. Pettitte, Clemens and Wells each offered a quality start and a win, Mike Mussina produced a quality start and a loss, but Mussina was the key reliever in the Yankees’ decisive Game 7 win.
That was the last time the Yankees won the ALCS and advanced to the World Series. Will Sabathia, Burnett and Pettitte — and Chad Gaudin if rain makes it necessary — deliver those kinds of efforts?
In 1998, with the Yankees down two-games-to-one and their 114-win season in jeopardy, Hernandez threw seven shutout innings to beat the Indians, Wells struck out 11 the next night and the Yankees never lost in the postseason again on the way to the Canyon of Heroes.
So the 2009 team does not compare with the 1998 squad until it gets its own parade. And just like then the route to Broadway begins with the rotation. Are Sabathia, Burnett and Pettitte ready to shoulder the load all the way to history?