Despite Quick Turnaround, Pettitte Well Rested

Andy Pettitte will take the mound for the Yankees in Game Six of the World Series tonight. He will be doing this just four days after his last start in Game Three on Saturday. So, for the first time in a few years, Andy will be pitching on three days rest rather than on four days worth of rest.

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Many people in the media are making a big stink about this. They say they don’t know how Pettitte will hold up on short rest. After all, Andy is 37 years old and did have shoulder issues in 2008 that lingered a bit in 2009. The concerns definitely seem legitimate. It may not be wise for the Yankees to run him out there on short rest after they did the same with A.J. Burnett. However, there is information to mitigate those fears.

The first is that throughout the season, Pettitte has been pretty well rested. In the regular season, Pettitte threw 194.2 innings, which is his lowest total since an injury shortened 2004 campaign. Adding in his post-season innings, we get 218.5 innings pitched for 2009, just 4.5 innings above his 162 game career average.

But aside from a relatively low innings count, there is the pitch count question. Between the regular season and the post-season, Pettitte has pitched in 37 games. He has only thrown more than 105 pitches eight times in those 37 games, and the last of those came on August 14th against the Mariners (he threw 111 pitches, striking out 10 over six innings). Since then, including the post-season, Andy has averaged 98.167 pitches per game. This low pitch count has helped keep Andy well rested and does a lot to assuage any doubts I may have had about Pettitte going on short rest. The days off is just one thing that goes into rest. We must account for prior workloads and Pettitte’s prior workload has not been all that heavy. I’m perfectly fine with Andy going on short rest tonight.