Andy Pettitte will be out at least six weeks
“We’ve got to weather the storm. No one’s going to feel sorry for us. Time to put my pom-poms on and be a cheerleader.”
I honestly didn’t think Andy Pettitte’s injury was that bad when it first happened because I didn’t see it. I saw him fall to the ground but I had no idea why he did. Then someone told me he was hit with the ball and even then I still didn’t think it was bad.
The idea of a fracture didn’t enter my mind so when I saw the first tweets surface that said “fracture” and “out for at least six weeks” I cursed very loudly.
Then I became sick to my stomach and covered my mouth with my hand fearing I’d throw up all over the nice people sitting in the row in front of me.
The rest of the game wasn’t very fun for me. I found it hard to cheer knowing what had happened to Pettitte. And I kept checking Twitter to see if maybe I was imagining things.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t. I watched as my stream filled with Yankee fans panicking, fans of other teams making HGH jokes and even some national baseball writers were getting in on the HGH jokes as well.
As I kept on reading my timeline, I felt like I had a lump in the pit of my stomach. It was actually pretty awful.
When the game ended and the Yankees completed their sweep of the Cleveland Indians, I was both happy and miserable. As much as I was relieved that they held on for the victory and that they kept their winning streak in tact, I couldn’t stop thinking about Pettitte. The word “fracture” was playing in my head over and over again like a broken record – almost as if it were taunting me.
I was happy to read some quotes from Pettitte after I arrived home from my sojourn into the city. Reading that he thinks he will be okay made me feel a lot better about the whole thing. Granted, it still stinks but what can you do? It was just a freak accident that unfortunately happened on the same day the Yankees lost CC Sabathia to a groin injury for a couple of weeks.
Silly rabbits, thinking losing CC was a big blow. Pfft. The baseball Gods laugh at you.
What was also really disappointing about the timing of the injury was how well Pettitte was pitching yesterday afternoon. Sure, the Yanks were down one run when he was taken out of the game but that run was unearned. He had only given up three hits, walked one batter and struck out seven in four innings.
Considering that people – mostly people who get paid to talk about sports on TV and radio – were predicting doom and gloom for Pettitte’s return, he was doing a pretty good job of shutting them up. Especially with his strikeout totals. Truthfully, a lot of people are perplexed by Pettitte’s ability to strike people out. He has 59 strikeouts in 58.2 innings this season.
His SO/9 rate – before today’s outing – was sitting at 8.6. The last time it was that high was when he pitched for the Houston Astros in 2004. And the SO/9 average for his career is 6.7.
So now we wait while Andy sits on the sidelines and see what happens to the Yankees without him. This summer was so promising and now there are more questions than answers at this point.
Yankee fans were just happy to have Andy Pettitte back in pinstripes this season. Just his being on the team again was enough for some of them. And now they’re left to wonder what will happen to the Yankees for the next, at least, six weeks until he’s able to return to the rotation.
Isn’t that amazing?
