Today I’m going to talk about something I love talking about: Andy Pettitte pitching well.
And I’m very happy to talk about his because he went through a stretch where he just wasn’t pitching very well. And unlike a most of his bad stretches, it was pretty long. Here are his splits by month:
| Month | G | IP | ERA | H | R | HR | BB | SO | SO/BB | BA | OBP | SLG | OPS | SO/9 | SO/BB |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| April/March | 4 | 27.1 | 2.96 | 24 | 10 | 1 | 6 | 16 | 2.67 | .240 | .280 | .350 | .630 | 5.3 | 2.67 |
| May | 6 | 36.1 | 4.95 | 46 | 21 | 7 | 16 | 18 | 1.13 | .309 | .380 | .490 | .869 | 4.5 | 1.13 |
| June | 5 | 26.2 | 5.06 | 33 | 19 | 3 | 13 | 27 | 2.08 | .297 | .381 | .441 | .822 | 9.1 | 2.08 |
| July | 6 | 37.1 | 4.82 | 34 | 21 | 5 | 11 | 32 | 2.91 | .241 | .296 | .383 | .679 | 7.7 | 2.91 |
| August | 6 | 39.2 | 2.50 | 29 | 13 | 2 | 12 | 39 | 3.25 | .207 | .266 | .293 | .559 | 8.8 | 3.25 |
There’s some really awful in there. For two full months, opposing batters were getting on base almost 40% of the time against Andy. They were 2008 Brian Roberts against him May and June. That’s bad (unless you’re a fan of the other team).
And then something happened in July and towards the end he started pitching much, much better. Here are gamelogs for Andy’s last two months:
| Date | Opp | W | L | IP | H | HR | R | ER | SO | BB | IBB | FB | GB | LD |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 7/1 | SEA | 1 | 0 | 7 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 8 | 10 | 2 |
| 7/6 | TOR | 0 | 1 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 3 | 5 | 0 | 12 | 8 | 0 |
| 7/11 | @LAA | 0 | 1 | 4.33 | 7 | 1 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 7 | 6 |
| 7/20 | BAL | 0 | 0 | 7.33 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 7 | 2 |
| 7/25 | OAK | 0 | 1 | 6.33 | 5 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 7 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 8 | 4 |
| 7/30 | @CHW | 0 | 0 | 6.33 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 9 | 3 |
| Monthly Total | 37.33 | 34 | 5 | 21 | 26 | 11 | 39 | 44 | 15 | |||||
| 8/4 | @TOR | 1 | 0 | 6.67 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 6 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 7 |
| 8/9 | BOS | 0 | 0 | 7 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 6 | 7 | 7 |
| 8/14 | @SEA | 0 | 0 | 6 | 6 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 7 | 2 | 4 |
| 8/21 | @BOS | 1 | 0 | 5 | 7 | 0 | 7 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 9 | 5 | 4 |
| 8/26 | TEX | 1 | 0 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 7 | 3 | 0 | 6 | 10 | 1 |
| 8/31 | @BAL | 1 | 0 | 8 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 11 | 0 |
| Monthly Total | 39.67 | 29 | 2 | 13 | 39 | 12 | 38 | 42 | 23 | |||||
Andy did have one clunker in August, but other than that he had a completely ridiculous and very likely unsustainable month. What I liked the most about this month was that he performed well against everyone he faced (Boston counts since he smacked them down the first time).
What’s caused this other than the completely berserk and unexpected strikeout surge? I’ve heard him say that his cutter and other pitches are working better, but I haven’t done the pitch F/X legwork to see if this is really true.
More balls in play are getting converted into outs, that’s for sure. Unfortunately we are still in a world without Game F/X and Hit F/X so I can’t comment on whether or not it’s because of how they’re getting hit, but his BABIP for August was a bit low (.267) whereas it was outrageous in June (.370).
Hopefully when regression kicks in, it’ll only be a slight pain and Andy can stay effective for the whole of September and October and the first week of November.
