Phil Hughes saves his job for now

With Andy Pettitte breathing down his neck, Phil Hughes had his best start of the baseball season.

Building on a promising outing five days ago, Hughes took command of the situation and the mound. He wasn’t unhittable and got careless (his word, not mine) with a pitch, giving up a home run to his final batter of the day. But he looked good on the mound, mixing in that elusive change-up to strike batters out left and right. His fastball was strong, hitting 95mph at times, and Hughes trusted it, which allowed him to go 6 2/3^rd innings in his longest and by far his best start of the year.

With Pettitte coming back to the Bronx soon, perhaps as early as this weekend, Hughes needed to step up to save his job and he did. Of course, that only buys Hughes some time to prove that he deserves to stay in the rotation. A couple of bad outings by Hughes and David Phelps, likely to get demoted to the bullpen or the minors with Pettitte’s return, will quickly get a second look.   

The New York Yankees and particularly Brian Cashman have a lot invested in Hughes. They have to prove that they can develop a strong starter in their minor league system, something they haven’t really done since Pettitte. (Yes, they have Ivan Nova, but the Yankees didn’t know what they had in that kid, letting him go in the Rule 5 draft before he was eventually returned to the team). So they will give Hughes as many chances as possible to prove that he belongs in the rotation. But those chances will run out eventually so Hughes needs to keep doing what he did yesterday to stick.

I, for one, would like to see him do it. I still remember the kid that won 17 games as a starter in 2010 and provided the hope that for just once, the Yankees actually got it right. 

Can't forgive Andy Pettitte's shady testimony

The terrible news about Mariano Rivera completely distracted me from an issue that had been bothering me for days: the suddenly faulty memory of Andy Pettitte, which I find incredibly shady.  

Mike Lupica, a writer who I’m normally not the hugest fan of most days, perfectly summed up my feelings in his column today. He basically called Pettitte a phony and made it clear that he cannot have it both ways, constantly expressing his faith in the Lord and then putting his hand on a bible and not telling the whole truth to save his old friend. Unfortunately, the damage of Pettitte’s testimony is done and Roger Clemens could get off scot-free because of it.

I was willing to forgive Pettitte’s use of human growth hormone because he was seemingly remorseful and honest about it, unlike other baseball players (Jason Giambi). But I can’t forgive him going on the witness stand and giving his old pal an out by all of a sudden not being sure about what he heard. For me, Pettitte now falls into the Alex Rodriguez category, a guy who I am forced to root for because the New York Yankees need him to do well. But I won’t be sad the next time Pettitte decides to retire.  

I was so excited about an Andy Pettitte comeback, pledging to do whatever it takes to be there for his first game back with the Yankees, but his testimony has left a sour taste in my mouth. Now I’ll just stay home.  

Mariano Rivera's vow to return warms the heart

Mariano Rivera’s faith in God is completely unshakeable, even in the face of the devastating injury that ended his baseball season. So it’s no surprise that Mo has decided that God is going to give him the strength to return to the pitcher’s mound and end his career on his own terms.

Even the freak knee injury that made my heart stop, that was even worse than watching Derek Jeter writhing in excruciating pain on the Toronto turf with a dislocated shoulder, will not stop Mariano Rivera forever. The New York Yankees closer and future Hall of Famer vowed that he would come back from the injury, a vow that warms my heart because while I never wanted Mo to retire from baseball, an even worse fate would be to see his career end like this.

Rivera’s Yankee teammates, glum and depressed as they were on Thursday night, were cheered by his decision. They know him well enough to understand that if he says he is coming back, then he is coming back, end of discussion, nothing will keep him off the mound. Jeter even thinks it could happen this year, although that’s probably unrealistic. But the faith Jeter and Rivera have in each other after 20 years playing together in the majors and minors is unbreakable. On the day Jeter got his 3,000^th hit, Rivera talked about wanting to see the Yankees shortstop hit a triple to achieve the elusive cycle. He believed Jeter would get that triple, just as Jeter has no doubts that his baseball brother will return to his rightful place closing games for the Yankees again.

I have no doubts either, even though I know the road back will be a long, hard one. But if anyone can navigate that difficult path, it’s Mo, with a little help from the God he completely believes in.   

Mariano's great career coming to a painful end?

After watching Mariano Rivera collapse on the Kansas City warning track in excruciating pain, one thought went racing through my mind over and over again: this isn’t happening. Unfortunately, it is.

Mo’s unmatchable career may be coming to a premature end after the future Hall of Famer tore his ACL before last night’s game. It was a fluke injury in every sense of the word, as Rivera is commonly known to be the New York Yankees best outfielder and has been shagging baseballs in the outfield before games for 20 years. For me, watching Mo crumple to the ground and writhe in obvious pain is by far the most upsetting thing I have ever seen on a ball field.

This is the kind of injury that shakes a team to its core and the Yankees have to figure out a way to recover, if they can. His teammates were obviously crushed, with even the normally stoic Derek Jeter looking watery-eyed at times. The two of them have played together forever. Jeter knew the truth about Rivera’s retirement plans (when few others did) and may have been preparing himself mentally and emotionally for losing Mo, but Jeter surely couldn’t have prepared himself for such a devastating accident.

And I felt so incredibly bad for Alex Rodriguez because you could tell he was personally devastated, not even able to talk about the terrifying moment when he saw Mo collapse out on the field. ARod said he and his teammates are going to have to find a way through this because no one would feel sorry for them. While ARod is right in the sense that nobody will take it easy on the Yankees, I truly doubt that anyone in baseball was happy to see such a great man fall.

The most heartbreaking moment for me was Rivera’s press conference after the game when he said he would not leave his team because he wanted to make sure his guys were okay, and then he unsuccessfully fought back tears talking about how he let his teammates down. I couldn’t help but cry myself, knowing that one thing Mo has never done is let his teammates or Yankee fans down. He may have blown a save here or there, but he always gave his best effort and bounced back the next day, ready to save yet another game. Mo couldn’t disappoint anyone if he tried.

I’ve known in my heart that we would soon have to prepare for life without Mo. I just didn’t expect to see a Hall of Fame career come to a close in such a painful way. But even if it does, I’m incredibly grateful for everything Mo has done for the Yankees and us fans. I hope he understands that we know we will never see another like him and we know how lucky we are to have had him, even if the time we had together has come to an unfortunate, early end. 

Is Pettitte trying to save his pal Clemens?

Andy Pettitte is a deeply religious man, a fact about his life he has no problem sharing with anyone who asks. So I have to hope that he didn’t put his hand on the Bible, swear to tell the truth and then lie to protect his old friend Roger Clemens.

On cross-examination, Pettitte said that he might have misunderstood Clemens when he thought his mentor and work-out partner told him about using human growth hormone. Pettitte went as far as to call a defense lawyer’s statement that there is a 50-50 chance of a misunderstanding “fair.” That answer is a huge blow to the prosecution’s case because it could discredit the testimony of its most reliable witness, with the judge now considering a motion to dismiss Pettitte’s entire testimony.

Pettitte’s suddenly faulty memory seems incredibly suspicious to me. Prior to his testimony yesterday, he has never given any indication that he had doubts about what Clemens told him. I would imagine that the prosecutors would have grilled him endlessly on this particular point since it’s so crucial to their case. But the prosecution has already seriously screwed up this case before, leading to that quick mistrial last year, so it’s not completely unbelievable that they didn’t make sure Pettitte was 100% certain about what he said Clemens told him before putting Pettitte on the stand.

I don’t think Pettitte would tell an outright lie about what Clemens told him, but even opening the door that widely to the possibility that he is wrong could help keep his pal out of prison. Pettitte is smart enough to know about reasonable doubt and this is just the kind of information that could give the jury the opportunity to set Clemens free.

It seems like Pettitte’s part in this legal drama may be coming to an end, which would allow him to try to regain momentum in his efforts to return to the New York Yankees. But the full ramifications of his testimony and the possibility of another player getting away with breaking the rules are enormous for the game of baseball. However, I’m fairly sure none of that entered Pettitte’s mind when he swore to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help him God.   

Pettitte may be final nail in Clemens' coffin

Roger Clemens was almost called a liar yesterday by a government witness. Andy Pettitte then stepped up to try to prove how much of a liar Clemens is.

Taking an unwelcome detour from his comeback attempt, Pettitte was in a Washington, DC courtroom yesterday testifying against his old pal, who is accused of committing perjury during the notorious Congressional hearings on the use of performance-enhancing drugs in baseball. Pettitte testified that during an off-season workout in Texas, Clemens told him he used human growth hormone and that it helped him with recover from the grueling exercise regimens Clemens was known to subject his body to, a conversation that set the stage for Pettitte’s own bad decision to use HGH.

This is the conversation Clemens claimed Pettitte “misremembered,” a claim that has been endlessly mocked since Clemens made it. But I doubt that many people believe Clemens’ version more than Pettitte’s recollection of the conversation, especially after a Congressional staffer testified that he had serious questions about the truthfulness of Clemens’ answers in front of the legislature. Of course, what matters most is what the jury believes and we will have to wait to see this trial play out before we know for sure what the jurors are thinking, although they seem obviously bored by the whole process at times.

It seems clear that this was a rather painful and uncomfortable experience for Pettitte, who would surely much rather be focusing on baseball, but was put in this predicament by a stubborn Clemens. But despite his religious upbringing, Pettitte is no saint either. He used HGH to try to recover more quickly from injuries so he could return to his team as soon as possible. While some may consider that noble, Pettitte knew that it was wrong. He testified yesterday that he wished he had never done it and would not find himself in a courtroom instead of on a baseball field if he had not taken HGH. It may be the one thing in his life that Pettitte would do over again if he could.

Whenever Pettitte is ready to return to the big leagues, there is no question that he can help the New York Yankees’ unsteady starting rotation. Even Buck Showalter, a former Yankees manager now running the division rival Baltimore Orioles, thinks Pettitte’s return is great for the Yankees and bad for everyone else. But Pettitte has to get through the extremely unpleasant experience of helping the government put his old friend in prison. I just hope Pettitte can find comfort in the fact that he is telling the truth and the entire situation is out of his hands. 

Andy Pettitte ready to return to the big leagues

Despite getting back-to-back strong outings from CC Sabathia and Hiroki Kuroda, the New York Yankees have to be thrilled with the prospect of Andy Pettitte’s imminent return to the big leagues.

Joe Girardi and Brian Cashman must be especially pleased. The short stints by his starters has forced Girardi to go to his bullpen early and often, potentially undermining what to date has been the Yankees greatest strength: strong relief work led by Mariano Rivera and David Robertson. And Cashman will feel vindicated by a Pettitte return, considering his Michael Pineda trade has not worked out the way he hoped (still the right move as far as I’m concerned).

Phil Hughes is up tonight and there’s no question that he absolutely needs a strong start. Freddy Garcia has already been banished to the bullpen and Hughes may join him if he doesn’t recover from his perplexing start against the Texas Rangers. Of course, one good start might not save his job, but at this point, it could definitely help.

Pettitte has pronounced himself ready although the Yankees will likely tread more cautiously. No one is expecting Pettitte to pitch lights out every turn in the rotation. But the wise old man (at a mere 39 years old) will immediately calm the nerves of everyone in the Yankees universe. We don’t know if Pettitte is going to have the same stuff considering his year-long pitching sabbatical. But we know he is going to show the same heart and bulldog mentality on the mound that we’re used to seeing, something the Yankees are desperately in need of right now.