Hardball Hyperbole: Chapter 12

In today’s edition, like he did so often in his Yankees career, Andy Pettitte came through with a clutch performance as the Yankees pulled even in the series.

It was only the second inning, but a pall had fallen over Yankee Stadium, 56,295 fans getting nervous, restless, maybe even panicked, and the same emotions were just as prevalent for the millions more pinstripe people watching on television.

One night after dropping Game 1 of the ALCS to the hated Red Sox, the Yankees were already in trouble in Game 2. Andy Pettitte - who almost always found a way to pitch his best when the stakes were the highest - had barely survived a shaky 22-pitch first inning when he allowed four of the first five Boston batters to reach base before escaping without a run scoring thanks to a strike ‘em out/throw ‘em out double play.

Now in the second inning, the relentless Red Sox were back at it. In succession, Jason Varitek doubled and Trot Nixon and Damian Jackson singled to give Boston a 1-0 lead and with Pettitte still in a first and second, no-out predicament, a minor cut was about to become stitch-worthy.

The first time through the order, seven of the nine Red Sox had reached base, so out to the mound trotted pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre to try to stem the bleeding and to offer some advice. Nothing brilliant, mind you. “He wanted to go hard, hard, hard,” Stottlemyre said of Pettitte’s early reliance on his fastball which wasn’t hitting spots but sure was finding lumber. “I was telling him to get the ball down.”

Obviously Pettitte didn’t need to be reminded of this, especially against this Boston offense that had pummeled opposing pitchers all year. Pettitte fully understood where his pitches needed to be; what he needed to do was start executing them.

“I can’t tell you exactly what he said because it was during the inning out there,” Pettitte said, offering proof that mound visits aren’t usually worth much of anything outside of giving the pitcher a chance to catch his breath and reset, especially when it’s a veteran like Pettitte. Seriously, what could Stottlemyre have really said that Pettitte hadn’t already heard during his nine years with the team?

“It was probably just, ‘You’re overthrowing, stay back,’” Pettitte said. “I know I was just agreeing with him and said, ‘Yeah, I’m trying to figure it out.’”

He did. On his very next pitch.

The big-game lefty threw a nasty cutter and induced Gabe Kapler to rip a grounder to Derek Jeter who turned it into a double play. “Gabe smoked that ball,” Jason Varitek said. “If that ball goes through, it’s pandemonium. That ball goes to either side of him and we got ourselves a pretty big inning.”

Ah, but it didn’t. Nixon moved to third on the play, but Pettitte stranded him by getting Bill Mueller to ground out to third to limit the damage to a run. Band-Aid only, no stitches.

“He showed he can make pitches when he needs to,” Stottlemyre said. “Hitters up here, they love for you just to try to throw it by ‘em. But that’s not going to work, not here; you’ve got to be able to put the ball to a location.”

“I thought (Kapler) would be bunting right there, and I was trying to run something in on his hands,” Pettitte said. “Fortunately, he was swinging and I was able to jam him and I was able to get a big ground ball right there. That was obviously a big reason why I was able to get through that inning without as many pitches and get a little bit later into the game like I did.”

Regardless of how early it was, there wasn’t much question that Pettitte's escape - appreciated by a gargantuan guttural Bronx roar as he walked to the dugout - was the turning point of the game, maybe even the series. Energized by that, the Yankees came up in the bottom of the second and took a 2-1 lead on Nick Johnson’s home run off Derek Lowe and now the stadium was juiced, the Yankees were wide awake, and they went on to a series-tying 6-2 victory.

Three straight singles in the third by Jeter, Jason Giambi and Bernie Williams bumped the advantage to 3-1, and a Williams double followed by an RBI single by Hideki Matsui in the fifth made it 5-1. Then, after Varitek stirred hopes for Boston with a solo homer in the sixth, Lowe allowed two baserunners with two outs in the seventh and watched reliever Scott Sauerbeck serve up a two-run double to Jorge Posada.

Meanwhile, Pettitte remained locked in and with the Varitek homer being the only blemish after the second inning, Pettitte accomplished exactly what Joe Torre and the Yankees needed: To be the stopper, and to make sure the series was tied heading back to Boston where Pedro Martinez would be waiting in Game 3.

This was nothing new for Pettitte. Ever since he broke in with the Yankees in 1995 when Buck Showalter was his manager, and then in 1996 when Torre took over and watched Pettitte lead the AL in wins with 21 before delivering a performance for the ages in Game 5 of the World Series, this is who Pettitte was.

And after what had happened the night before, with the Yankees desperately needing to win, there was no one Torre wanted pitching more than Pettitte. Not Roger Clemens, not Mike Mussina, not David Wells.

“I don’t think I can trust anyone more than I trust Andy, because I put so much value on someone who pitches under the stress that he pitches under,” Torre said. “He’s a guy I didn’t know anything about when I got here in ‘96 and he did a number of things in ‘96 and that trust will never leave me. Especially after the way he pitched Game 5 in Atlanta, 1-0. That was huge for us.”

No pitcher in baseball history has started more postseason games than Pettitte. He made 44 in all, 40 with New York. This was his 27th of those 40 and the Yankees were now 19-8 (his record was 12-7). It hadn’t always been easy. In his 166 postseason innings to date his ERA was 4.28 which, admittedly, was not great. That’s because Pettitte was always a pitcher who dealt with traffic on the bases. In those 166 innings he had allowed 181 hits and 46 walks for an unflattering 1.379 walks/hits per innings pitched.

The thing with Pettitte, though, is he would allow baserunners, but like in the second inning of this game, when he needed to make a great pitch, he so often did. You look through his history and there are games that just leap off his baseball-reference page.

He won the clinching Game 5 against the Orioles in the 1996 ALCS. After a terrible Game 1 of the 1996 World Series, he outlasted Atlanta’s John Smoltz in Game 5, one of the best pitchers’ duels in World Series history.

In 1998 he allowed just one run in beating Texas in Game 2 of the ALDS, then pitched 7.1 shutout innings and won Game 4 to clinch the World Series sweep of the Padres.

In 1999 he beat the Rangers in the ALDS and the Red Sox in the ALCS with two outstanding outings where he gave up a combined three runs.

After the Yankees lost Game 1 of the 2000 ALDS to the A’s, he threw 7.2 scoreless innings to win Game 2. He was the winner in Game 3 of the ALCS against the Mariners, then delivered two solid performances in Games 1 and 5 of the World Series against the Mets, both won by the Yankees. And in 2001, he beat the 116-win Mariners twice in the ALCS.

Now he had another gritty, winning performance to add to the ledger.

“I had to make a lot of big pitches tonight and fortunately I was able to get away from it,” he said. “I was hoping after the first inning I would relax a little bit and feel a little bit more comfortable and not try to overthrow. But it was a battle for me tonight as far as locating my ball and then putting the ball where I wanted to. These guys got a great lineup and are very tough on me.”

During the regular season Pettitte started four times against Boston, and the games bore resemblance to this one. The Red Sox would make him work - 25 hits and four walks in 25 innings - and they drove his ERA up to a fat 5.04. However, Pettitte went 3-1 in those games. It was a familiar tale for Red Sox manager Grady Little.

“The game was determined there in the first two innings,” Little said. “He got into a rhythm after that and the rest is history.”

To which Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein agreed: “We certainly had chances and didn’t capitalize the way we hoped to. Against a pitcher like Pettitte, he can turn it back on at a moment’s notice, so when he is struggling, you need to capitalize better than we did there. It’s tough. You’re not going to score a lot of runs when there are two double plays in the first two innings.”

NEXT WEDNESDAY: One of the most adventurous and unforgettable days in the history of the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry occurred in Game 3 which featured Pedro Martinez tossing Don Zimmer to the grass, a fight in the Yankees bullpen, and a Yankees victory.