Yankees Don’t Win by Paying Petty Cash

As baseball’s reigning dynasty, the New York Yankees have proved their ability to play with money on the line--and there is more than one method of calculating that. Their 25-man postseason roster, for example, was paid $120 million this year, with the four-deep rotation alone receiving $34.5 million.

Although Andy Pettitte, who was paid $7 million this year, is certainly not a pauper, it’s also true that he doesn’t receive the publicity of his fellow starters. Of course, he doesn’t have the heat of the Rocket (Roger Clemens) or the flair of El Duque (Orlando Hernandez) or the arrogance of the Moose (Mike Mussina). He doesn’t even have a nickname unless you count “lefty,” which is too universal to be considered his own.

With all of that, however, the Yankees wouldn’t be sitting on all that postseason gold if it wasn’t for Pettitte, or as Paul O’Neill was saying Wednesday, “everybody knows the intensity of Rocket and guys like that, but Andy has been great and doesn’t get enough credit. He pitches so many huge games for us. It seems like he’s always out there in a Game 5 or a Game 7, and he doesn’t get the credit for the way he just battles people. I went out to dinner with him last night and knew he was ready to go.”

Well, a fine dinner is nice, but Pettitte doesn’t need it to stoke his postseason appetite.

After giving up only one run in 61/3 innings of New York’s 2-0 loss in Game 2 of the division series with the Oakland Athletics, the 29-year-old southpaw shut down Ichiro Suzuki and the Seattle Mariners, 4-2, Wednesday in Game 1 of the American League’s championship series--this dream matchup between the 116-win Mariners and the three-time defending World Series champion Yankees.

Pettitte quieted a crowd of 47,644 at Safeco Field by giving up only three hits in eight innings while striking out seven and walking only one. He faced 26 batters, two over the limit for that span, and is now 9-5 with a 3.96 earned-run average for 21 postseason starts and 4-1 in six LCS starts.

More impressively, the Yankees are 10-1 in his last 11 postseason starts. “Obviously, when you’ve had success in the past,” Pettitte said, “you can lean back on that. My concentration may be at a little higher level than during the regular season, but all I’m trying to do is make quality pitches. I just think our confidence is such that the whole team takes it to a different level once we reach the postseason.”

In the aftermath of their stunning comeback against the A’s, the Yankees are riding another wave. They have won four in a row and have their acclaimed rotation in potentially dominating order. While Seattle is bringing back Freddy Garcia on three days rest tonight so that he would be available to pitch twice in the series if needed, the Yankees could run the table with Mussina, Hernandez and Clemens, who will have given his ailing hamstring five days of rest.

“You look up and down their rotation ... Pettitte, Mussina, anyone of those guys can give you fits,” Seattle second baseman Bret Boone said.

The Mariners are trying to validate those 116 wins, but it was Pettitte who validated his emerging reputation as a big-game pitcher in the opener, holding the catalytic Suzuki hitless in three at-bats, eliciting clutch double plays in the second and seventh innings, striking out Edgar Martinez after a leadoff single by Boone in the seventh and restricting a major jam to one run in the fifth.

Martinez began that inning with a single and took third on Mike Cameron’s ensuing double off the left-field fence. John Olerud’s groundout scored Martinez, but Pettitte then struck out Jay Buhner and Dan Wilson.

He threw only 99 pitches in eight innings of a total reversal from his two regular-season starts against the Mariners. In going 15-10 overall with a 3.99 ERA, he was hammered by the Mariners, giving up 11 earned runs in 121/3 innings.

“I just had good stuff today, and a better curveball than I’ve had in a while,” Pettitte said. “I was able to throw it for strikes whenever I wanted, and I was able to move my fastball around.

“The big key to my success is when I’m getting ground-ball double plays, and I was able to get them today.”

It was as late as two years ago that Pettitte wasn’t sure he would be serving up any more double plays for the Yankees, getting all of these postseason starts.

A poor first half in 1999 had the Yankees close to pulling the trigger on a trade with the Philadelphia Phillies, but Manager Joe Torre and pitching coach Mel Stottlemyre talked The Boss, a.k.a. George Steinbrenner, out of it.

Torre reflected Wednesday and said what stuck in his memory was the 1-0 victory Pettitte had pitched against the Atlanta Braves in Game 5 of the 1996 World Series.

That memory, Torre said, and Stottlemyre’s “staunch belief in Andy” made it easy to support him. Pettitte has justified the support by going 34-19 over the last two seasons, and he might have won more if he hadn’t gone on the disabled list in September after being hit on the left elbow by a line drive.

The fact that he has now regained some of that lost arm strength, Pettitte said, has contributed to his two strong starts against Oakland and Seattle.

Said Torre: “I learned in ’96 how he keeps his wits about him. It’s so easy to get distracted in the postseason with the fans, and the time between innings, but he’s able to focus and block everything out. He’s stood tall.”

It’s now the 0-1 Mariners who face a tall order against the Yankees and a rotation rich in talent and dollars. Or as Seattle Manager Lou Piniella put it: “They’ve got good starting pitching, we know that. They spend quite a bit of money on it and it shows.”