(
)
What had been a double-digit lead against the Orioles was crumbling along with the Yankee rotation. The staff veteran had missed a few months due to injury and the prudent protocol was to methodically stretch him out more before a September return.
But David Cone saw what was happening and how much the Yanks needed his pitching and savvy and told then-Yankees general manager Bob Watson, “I just have a limited number of bullets, let’s not waste them down here.”
That was how Cone, out for four months following surgery to remove an aneurysm near his right shoulder, got his last scheduled Double-A start scrapped. Instead, he went into the rotation on Labor Day in Oakland and threw seven no-hit innings en route to helping save a season which would end with the organization’s first title in 18 years.
Andy Pettitte was the neophyte of that rotation. But now he is Cone. He is the senior member of a beat-up rotation for a Yankees team that has blown a double-digit lead against Baltimore. Pettitte has not pitched since June 27 when he fractured a bone near his ankle. As with Cone, the Yanks had hoped to sustain a big lead and cautiously work Pettitte back into the rotation to ready him for the playoffs. But, as with Cone, the caution vanished with a big division lead.
Ideally, Pettitte would be stretched further than the four innings he has worked in a simulated game. But Joe Girardi announced yesterday Pettitte will start Tuesday, which will line him up to make possibly four starts, including the regular-season finale. Pettitte is 40. He only has a limited number of bullets and the Yankees need him to fire whatever he has left against opponents, not against back-of-the-roster teammates such as Chris Dickerson and Casey McGehee in simulated games. Pettitte agrees.
Is there peril in this approach? You bet. Under essentially the same scenario, the Yankees rushed back Mark Teixeira from his calf problem, and he reinjured himself in his first game and now will miss two more weeks.
But the Yankees also could look to Cone’s case for inspiration. Cone was the kind of pitcher — self-confident, willing to absorb tons of responsibility, an excellent teammate — that helped beyond his on-mound work. Pettitte has grown into that. The team just feels better about itself and its chances with Pettitte around. He emits a sense of been-there, done-that calm that permeates a clubhouse, but that really can only be provided when the player is playing.
Cone knew this as well. So after his Double-A start against the Hardware City Rock Cats on Aug. 26, 1996 — the day the Mets fired Dallas Green as manager and named Bobby Valentine — he informed Watson it was time for the majors. The injury Cone was returning from was serious enough that when his hand initially went cold due to lost circulation, he thought it would need to be amputated. But that was then, and in the moment Cone felt there was enough oomph in his pitches and knowledge in his head to make a difference.
Then-Yankees skipper Joe Torre did not push Cone like the Mets did Johan Santana with a magical no-hitter possible. Cone was pulled after seven innings and Oakland managed an infield single. With Dwight Gooden having run out of gas after replacing Cone in the rotation and Kenny Rogers essentially scared to pitch for the Yankees, Torre recognized he needed Cone for more than this one game, as special as it was.
Cone would go on to win the AL East clincher and the pivotal Game 3 of the World Series with the Yankees down two games to none against Atlanta.
Now the Yankees need the same capability and inspiration from Pettitte. The team knows he has the fortitude for it. Because over the final two months of the 1996 season, when the rest of that rotation was fraying, the lone starter to consistently help the Yankees ward off Baltimore went 6-2 with a 2.94 ERA in his last 12 starts, though his elbow was aching and he took a line drive off his kneecap in mid-September.
That was the 24-year-old Andy Pettitte.