Pettitte can close out third series - on short rest
Photo credit: Getty Images | Andy Pettitte of the New York Yankees laughs during batting practice before Game 4 against the Philadelphia Phillies. (Nov. 1, 2009)
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World Series Game 5: Phillies 8, Yankees 6
Andy Pettitte goes for a different sort of triple crown tonight.
Pettitte, who won the clinching game of the Division Series against the Twins and closed out the Angels in the American League Championship Series, tries to secure World Series title No. 27 for the Yankees Wednesday night in Game 6.
"What an opportunity," Pettitte said Tuesday of trying to win a third clinching game this postseason. "That's really the only way you can look at it, to be able to hopefully pitch the game that will bring a 27th world championship to this organization and this city, it's what we set out to do. I've had the opportunity to close out . . . to be able to pitch [those] games the previous two rounds, it's exciting."
>>VIDEO: Click here to see the Yankees preparing for Game 6
But Pettitte, 37, will be asked to do something he hasn't done since 2006 when he was with the Astros - pitch on short rest, doing so Wednesday night against an old Red Sox adversary, Pedro Martinez.
Pettitte, 3-0 with a 3.24 ERA this postseason, has a mixed resume when it comes to pitching on three days' rest, though it does read better in the postseason.
He is 4-6 with a 4.15 ERA in 14 regular-season starts on short rest but he is 3-1 with a 2.80 ERA in five postseason starts on three days' rest.
Two of those games helped make the "Big Game Andy" legend - Game 5 of the 1996 World Series, when he didn't allow a run in 81/3 innings in Atlanta and Game 2 of the 2003 World Series against Florida, when he allowed an unearned run in 82/3 innings.
He said, "I really don't think there's that big of a difference," pitching on three days' rest and that he felt fine physically, but later acknowledged as a 37-year-old, "I don't know how I'll feel."
"Physically for me, it obviously is a little concern," Pettitte said. "Just seeing how my body is going to feel on that short rest, because I'm just not sure at my age or whatever."
But Pettitte's Game 3 start, when he had to "grind" his way through six innings, giving up four runs and five hits, was one that came on extra rest.
"I know I felt terrible the other night and I was on six days' rest," Pettitte said. "I just, you know, am going to go as hard as I can for as long as I can."
The Yankees are trying to become the first team since the 1991 Twins to win the World Series with a three-man rotation, something manager Joe Girardi began preparing his three starters for in September when the Yankees had a big division lead.
"That we haven't had to overwork him the last, I don't know, two months basically, that's probably why he feels extremely well," Girardi said. "With all the extra days that he's had and missing the start the one time [Sept. 16], physically I think it's helped him."
While Pettitte admitted to not knowing exactly what to expect, his teammates have seen enough.
"Andy's solid throughout the whole year but something about the postseason he rises to the occasion," said A.J. Burnett, who did not in Game 5.
Mark Teixeira, in the midst of an awful series at the plate (2-for-19), said the entire team needs to rise to the occasion, much as it did in this situation in the ALCS when the Yankees closed out the Angels in Game 6 after dropping Game 5 in Anaheim.
"Tomorrow's very important," Teixeira said. "We don't want to push it to a Game 7. We want to finish it off, just like the last series when we came back here, we want to finish it off in Game 6."
If not, it will be up to CC Sabathia, who would take the mound in Game 7 on, of course, three days' rest.
"It would be unbelievable, this is what you sign up for," Sabathia said Tuesday of the prospect of pitching a seventh game at the Stadium. "This is what you come here for, this is what you play for. So it would be fun. But hopefully we don't have to get there."
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