The Triumphant Return Of My Favorite Player, Andy Pettitte

Somehow, I have stumbled into the greatest thing that could happen to a sports fan. My favorite player, one Andrew Eugene Pettitte, a man who quietly retired almost 2 years ago and has long since been forgotten, has come out of retirement and takes the mound today for the first time since October 2010. I couldn’t be more thrilled. I couldn’t be more shocked at my good fortune. This is awesome.

Ok, here’s my plan. Today is Mother’s Day  so I spent the morning and most of the afternoon at “brunch” (is it still brunch if it takes 4 hours and we don’t get home until 3?) but, I had the foresight to record the game and I’m going to watch it now. I worked very hard to know nothing about this game so I’m starting from scratch here.  I’m going to do sort of a running diary in bullet form of the top halves of innings. I’m going to fast forward through the Yankees hitting and just focus on Pettitte. I could not be more excited. Here we go:

• The Yankees just took field. This is surreal
• They are now showing a graphic of Pettitte’s stats, they are from the 2010 regular season. They are good (3.28 ERA) but totally irrelevant.
• First batter, Dustin Ackely- First pitch- popped foul. He’s officially back!
• Ackely just hit a ball 313ft to the 314 ft sign. That was close but out number 1.
• Casper Wells is hitting. Who is Casper Wells? Is this a free out for Andy? Clearly not, Pettitte walked him. Uh Oh.
• Pettitte is topping out at 90. Nice.
• Ichiro GIDPs. 1 inning down. Awesome.
• Fast Forward- Top 2
• Top of the second, Jesus Montero leading off.
• Montero’s got the pink spikes to go along with his pink bat. I really like this guy, too bad the Yanks traded him but that’s something for a separate post.
• Pettitte just bounced a breaking ball again, looks like that’s not too sharp today.
• Montero drills a fastball right at Jeter for an out. Andy missed his spot there.
• Justin Smoak grounds a 2-0 pitch to short for out number 2. Great pitch, just as good as the one to Montero was bad.
• Pettitte jumps out ahead of Alex Liddy then misses on a hanging changeup.
• Good 1-1 pitch right on the outside black.
• Bounces another breaking ball.
• Pettite walks Liddy on a very close 3-2 pitch.
• Mike Carp is now the hitter. He’s batting .167 on the season. It seems like everyone in the Mariner’s lineup has a batting average that starts with a 1.
• Broken bat grounder, 3 outs. Nice.
• Fast forward- Top 3
• 1 pitch, 1 out. grounder to second.
• Great first pitch to the next hitter, great cutter.
• Then a groundout to first. Other than the first batter, nothing has even gotten out of the infield so far. This is great.
• Ackely to hit for the second time.
• Healthy cut at a curve makes it 1-2
• Great breaking ball for strike 3. YES!
• 3 innings, 2 base runners, no hits!
• Fast forward- Top 4
• Good 88 mph cutter for strike one to Wells.
• Swinging bunt back to Andy and he makes the play. Wasn’t the most graceful play but he got the runner easily.
• Ichiro bounces out on the second pitch.
• Announcers just said that Joe Torre is in attendance today, cool.
• Pink Spikes Montero now hitting again.
• Pettitte shakes off the slider away for the cutter in and Montero grounds it weakly foul. This is a good sign.
• Woah, that was strike three easy. Backdoor cutter, great pitch but called a ball, somehow.
• Now a walk. His 3rd of the game.
• Michael Kay just said that Pettitte is the only guy ever drafted by the Yankees to start 200 MLB games. That’s bad.
• Uh oh. Justin Smoak just hit a 1-1 pitch over the left field fence. 2-0 Seattle. No hitter gone.
• Very next pitch popped to right.
• Damn 2 out walks.
• Fast forward- Top 5
• So I should have mentioned before that Kevin Millwood is starting for the Mariners. Are we sure this game isn’t being played in 1999?
• After a popout, a drag bunt single. Andy should have covered 1st base but it wold have been a nearly impossible play either way.
• Pettitte is still right at 88 from the stretch, that’s good.
• Couple of good pickoffs out of Andy. Still looking for that 100th career.
• Great change for strike three. Brandon Ryan strikes out. (Maybe it was a backdoor cutter)
• A grunt from Andy as he let go of that 88 mph fastball, missed inside by a foot.
• Pettitte is working much much slower this inning.
• Good curve to Ackely, 1-2.
• Pettitte missed with a curve but Russel Martin threw out the runner stealing. Inning over.
• Fast forward Top 6
• Yankees scored once in the bottom of the 5th. 2-1
• Second pitch to Ackely is roped in to the right-center gap. Swisher held it to a single with a nice slide.
• Wild pitch allows Ackely to make it to second. Pettite has bounced quite a few today.
• 2-2 pitch is a long fly that bounces off the right field foul pole. Only a homer in the Bronx. Damn. 4-1
• Pettite is only at 72 pitches after Ichiro grounds out again but I think he looks kind of beat.
• Montero singles off the right field wall. Time to get some action in the ‘pen. Contact this inning has been much harder than the previous 5,
• First pitch to Smoak is a hard ground single. Now the bullpen is moving. Might be time to get Pettitte out of there, this is his first start. Even though his pitch count is low, these are his first MLB pitches in a while and they as such, have been particularly taxing.
• This is the already the most pitches Andy has thrown in an inning today. Still only 1 out.
• Liddy is really working Pettite hard. He’s fouled off a bunch of 3-2 pitches, 8 pitches in the at bat so far.
• 2 more fouls. We’re up to the 11th pitch of the at bat.
• Hard single to left. That’s it, if I’m the manager, I’m getting him out of there having done a great job. Pitching coach Larry Rothchild is out at the mound now.
• Big batter right now. Bases loaded for Mike Carp.
• Carp drills a foul ball, 1-1 count.
• Russell Martin is out to the mound for at least the 5th time this inning.
• YES!!!!! GREAT 3-3-2 double play. Inning over. 4-1 after the double play.
• Fast forward Top 7
• Andy is back out there for the 7th. Not sure I agree.
• Broken bat groundout for out number one after another close pitch called a ball. Insides of pink bats look the same as normal bats, who knew.
• Here comes Girardi, Pettitte’s done.

Pettitte coming out to a standing ovation. He waves to the crowd. That was awesome, I’m so glad he’s back. Final line: 6.1 innings, 4 ER, 4 hits, 3bb, 2 ks. Good job by Pettitte. If he can be a consistent starting pitcher for New York he could be a huge help to the team’s playoff chances. Personally, I’m thrilled. That was awesome. I still can’t believe that my favorite player is back after so long gone. It’s great and really very lucky. Pettitte looked sharp today, he still has to work on locating his breaking stuff and he missed some spots but overall I’m quite happy. Hopefully the Yanks score and get him of the hook.

-Max Frankel