Andy Pettitte walked off the Yankee Stadium mound in the third inning of today’s game, and it will be a long time before you see him there again.
Pettitte suffered a strained left groin and exited the Yankees’ 9-5 win over the Rays early. The Yankees will place him on the 15-day disabled list Tuesday and activate Sergio Mitre later in the week to replace Pettitte in the starting rotation.
General manager Brian Cashman said he expects Pettitte to miss 4-5 weeks. That estimate is based on the time he will have to rest the leg, and then the time it will take him to get his arm back into pitching shape again.
“It’s a double whammy with a pitcher,” Cashman said.
The injury puts a halt to a magnificent season for the 38-year-old Pettitte. He is 11-2 with a 2.88 ERA and was selected for the All-Star team. He felt pain in his leg on a 2-1 pitch to Kelly Shoppach in the third inning. Catcher Jorge Posada immediately ran to the mound, and then called out manager Joe Girardi, pitching coach Dave Eiland and trainer Gene Monahan. Pettitte threw one warm-up pitch and then they removed him.
“I didn’t feel it that bad,” Pettitte said. “I felt like I landed a little bit awkward. I felt a little burning sensation in there. As I stood there I kind of felt something aching me a little bit. I just tried to throw the warm-up pitch. I felt fine as I threw it but as I tried to bring my leg over, my left leg, it didn’t feel good at all.”
The Yankees will now turn to Mitre, who has missed 28 games with a strained left oblique. Mitre will make a rehab start for Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre tonight to prepare him for Saturday’s start against the Royals.
The Yankees have used six starting pitchers all year, and avoided any serious injuries to their starters until now.
“We’ve been lucky we got this deep into the season,” Cashman said. “That’s why we have alternatives. That’s why Sergio Mitre is here. He’ll have a significant role at least until Andy Pettitte gets back.”
With Pettitte out of the game, the Yankees got a clutch performance from their bullpen and rallied to win the series against the Rays, taking two of three and moving three games up on them in the AL East.
“It was huge,” said Alex Rodriguez, who clubbed his 598th career home run in the seventh inning. “We could have easily been tied for first place or even worse than that. I think it’s important to win a series and again, protect our home court. We always like to play well at home and we did that this weekend.”
Pettitte spotted Tampa a 3-0 lead on a home run from Carlos Pena in the first inning. The lead felt bigger with Rays ace David Price on the mound, but a Robinson Cano triple scored two in the bottom of the first and the Yankees were right back in it.
The bullpen had been taxed Saturday after A.J. Burnett’s door-slapping episode, and Girardi had to turn to David Robertson, Chan Ho Park, Boone Logan and Joba Chamberlain to each pitch longer than usual. Even Mariano Rivera got in to record the last out.
Robertson came up huge after Girardi called on him to replace Pettitte with two men on and a 3-1 count on Shoppach. He walked Shopppach, then got Sean Rodriguez and B.J. Upton out to escape the inning.
“I think those were the two biggest outs of the game,” Rodriguez said.
The Yankees offense rallied, tying the score in the third and then putting up four runs in the fifth inning to take a 7-3 lead. The big hit in that inning was a double from Jorge Posada that scored two. They added runs in the sixth and seventh to put the game away.