LOS ANGELES — You know who A.J. Burnett is? He’s Mickey Rourke: A very good actor who should’ve been one of the very best actors. He’s the rock band Boston: one excellent album, one pretty good album and a whole lot of forgettable guitar riffs through the years.
He’s “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”: Every time you watched, you’d think to yourself, “Damn this could be pretty good.” And every time you stopped watching, you’d say to yourself, “Another hour of my life I’ll never get back.”
“This is my career,” Burnett said last week in Phoenix. “It’s why my record is what my record is.”
There are Yankees fans who want Burnett skipped right now, who want him awarded the Oliver Perez DL Scholarship, who want him traded away for a grilled-cheese sandwich. The cooler head belonging to Joe Girardi will prevail on this matter.
“That isn’t going to help A.J.,” the Yankees manager said last night. “We’re not throwing in the towel on him.”
But Burnett can get you thinking crazy thoughts if you watch him pitch long enough. Last night was another heavy dose of Awful A.J., the Dodgers pounding him for six hits, six walks and six runs, a beastly 6-6-6 that allowed an early 3-0 lead to vaporize into an ugly 9-4 loss.
“It’s times like this,” Girardi said, shaking his head, “when you are reminded that this game is not easy.”
Said Burnett: “It’s frustrating when you have good bullpen sessions, when you feel like your mechanics are right, your stuff is good and . . .”
He shook his head. Five days after allowing five first-inning runs to the lowly Diamondbacks, he found himself buried under another avalanche of hurt. Last time out it was the long ball that buried him; this time it was an inability to find the plate. At one point, his ball-strike ratio was 31 strikes and 33 balls. That’ll get you gone in any league.
There are still days when you look at Burnett throw a baseball and you wonder how anyone ever makes contact. Yet then you’ll take a look at his page on baseball-reference.com and the story you see is this: He is now 106-92, 14 games over .500 for a 12-year career, with an ERA of 3.91. Those figures are almost impossible to believe given his always-electric stuff.
Until you counter them with these numbers, amassed over the past five starts: an 0-5 record, an 11.35 ERA, 23 innings of work, 35 hits, 17 walks. There was a time not long ago when it was Javier Vazquez who sent Yankees fans into spasms of angst every time he took the mound, but even at Vazquez’s worst he wasn’t this bad.
“It kills me,” Burnett said. “Honestly, I wish I could go out again tomorrow and make this right.”
Now, as with every other ill that ails the Yankees, Burnett’s malaise isn’t exactly cataclysmic. The Yankees have endured slumps from every key offensive player besides Robinson Cano so far. They’ve seen Joba Chamberlain periodically turn into a human Zippo lighter. Vazquez and Burnett have had their issues, and until lately it seemed the only team CC Sabathia could beat were Orioles.
And yet even with last night’s loss the Yankees are two games clear of the Red Sox (who have lost Dustin Pedroia and Clay Buchholz the last two days) and the Rays (who’ve had a few missteps on their way to running away and hiding in the East), are still 18 games over .500, the best record in baseball, still the consensus team to beat in the sport.
They have time to allow Burnett to find himself.
But make no mistake: their path the next four months must include a Burnett who has in fact found himself. He’s already ceded his No. 2 slot in the rotation to Phil Hughes, and Andy Pettitte has been brilliant. You have to believe Burnett can eventually work his way to a tidy role as the sport’s best (and certainly priciest) No. 4 starters.
The Yankees can afford this as a sabbatical. Anything more? Then the angst might turn into something more than angst.