In Andy Pettitte’s previous start, he had the shadow of Joba Chamberlain looming over him, with the Yankees desperate to stretch out the youngster’s arm from the bullpen to get him ready to join the rotation.
Pettitte was effective against the Orioles, but was pulled after 6-2/3 innings and 96 pitches.
Tonight against the Twins (7:05, YES, WCBS), expect the Yankees to let the veteran southpaw go as long as he is willing.
Chamberlain will make his first start tomorrow night, and will be on a strict 70-pitch count, and the Yankees have exhausted their bullpen in Minnesota thanks to short starts and extra-inning games.
“There’d be a fight out there on the mound if he was going to throw four or five innings tonight,” Pettitte said jokingly after getting the 4-2 win over the Orioles on Tuesday. “I wanted to give us seven or eight innings and whatever they were going to do with him, they were going to have to figure out how to do that. We were trying to win a ballgame out there.”
The Yankees were so in need of bullpen assistance they waived Morgan Ensberg and called up Scott Patterson from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. Patterson threw 40 pitches in yesterday’s 5-1 loss and will not be available tonight.
Dan Giese is expected to be called up to back up Chamberlain tomorrow.
So the pressure is on Pettitte to throw deep into tonight’s game and give the Yankees (28-28) an opportunity to climb back over .500.
Pettitte faced this situation earlier in the season when youngsters Phil Hughes and Ian Kennedy were pitching short outings before him in the rotation. And Mike Mussina is not known for his longevity.
“Our starting staff hadn’t thrown a lot of innings this turn around,” Pettitte said. “You want to make sure that you do, but you want to do what I do, and hopefully that’ll be seven innings, eight innings. I didn’t want to over-stress how important this start was; I just wanted to be able to give us a good outing.”
Tonight’s Pitching Matchup:
Yankees LHP Andy Pettitte (5-5, 4.11 ERA) After losing four straight, Pettitte has won his past two starts against the Orioles and Mariners.
Twins RHP Livan Hernandez (6-2, 4.60 ERA) The Twins took a chance on Hernandez when most people in baseball thought he was done. After a 6-1 start, Hernandez has struggled in his past two starts, giving up 23 hits and 14 runs in 11-1/3 innings against the Royals and Rangers.
With Yankees.com