As Matthew Pouliot writes, the Yankees lose disproportionately to pitchers they’ve never seen before. YES also had this as a graphic during last night’s game. Including Josh Tomlin, 11 pitchers have made their Major League debuts against the Yankees since 2000. For the most part, these pitchers are now well-established fringe types or have never been heard from again, with the exception being Josh Peavy. The Yankees have gone 3-8 in those games.

I haven’t done the research, but I also have the distinct impression that the Yankees have hit good pitchers better than bad ones, which is to say that if a pitcher comes into a game against the Yankees with an ERA of 3.30, he’s more likely to get thrashed than a pitcher who comes in with an ERA of 5.30. This is purely an

PETTITTE FORDING FORD
With today’s victory, Andy Pettitte tied Whitey Ford for career wins. The two now sit at 60th on the all-time list with 236, sitting just behind a couple of Yankees alumni, Waite Hoyt and Clark Griffith, both of whom are in the Hall of Fame. It’s a nice accomplishment for Pettitte, who seemed to spend years with his arm hanging by a thread. Just a few years ago you wouldn’t have predicted him to have the endurance to get to this point, and you certainly wouldn’t have predicted this season’s dominant start as recently as last year.

When Pettitte eventually passes Whitey Ford, possibly as soon as Saturday, I’m sure we’ll hear a lot about how Ford could have had more wins had Casey Stengel not made a point of pitching the southpaw

THERE’S GOT TO BE A BETTER WAY
I’ve always been a big supporter of David Robertson’s. His Minor League track record was exemplary, featuring the killer strikeout rates he carried over to the majors. Last year, I felt the Yankees were too slow to embrace him and too conservative when it came to challenging him with appearances in critical situations. I remain enthusiastic about his Major League future. However, it seems like that future is not now.

In nine games this season, Robertston has yet to have one perfect appearance. His walks have been acceptable, his strikeout rate still good, but his mechanics and command seem to have gotten completely out of hand. His last three appearances, each spaced four days apart from its predecessor, have been disastrous. He’s allowed

Keith Olbermann has a blog post up about Andy Pettitte and the Hall of Fame. Seems to me he’s unlikely to go (a separate issue from whether he should go or not), but he does underscore an interesting aspect of the way that the Yankees have gone about winning their umptybillion rings over the last 87 years. For a team that has won as many games as the Yankees have, you’d think they would have stamped out a 300-game winner every 15 years or so, the pitchers just picking up wins by hanging around good teams. That hasn’t been the case. Only two pitchers have won even 200 games in a Yankees uniform, Whitey Ford with 236 and Red Ruffing with 231. Andy Pettitte is currently third with 192 wins in pinstripes, followed by Lefty Gomez (189) and Ron Guidry (170).

It’s not that

You’ve probably read by now that longtime Yankees trainer Gene Monahan is battling a serious illness and will miss his first Spring Training since the early 1960s. Over at the LoHud blog, Sam Borden wrote, “Every baseball reporter has a story about the time they got sick or the time they stabbed themselves with a pen or the time they got a bloody nose in the clubhouse, and Monahan is a great guy who was always there with a band-aid or a Tylenol.”

I have a story like that. About five years ago, I went up to the Stadium to do some interviews. My pass was mislaid, and I spent about an hour outside the press gate in the midday sun while the Yankees tried to locate the guy who could resolve the problem. It was a terrifically hot day. I didn’t realize it, but I was becoming

Comrades, as much as I hate to defuse a raging discussion in the commentary section, it’s much ado about nothing. I understand the difference between the popular accounting of decades and the more logical way of doing it. However, as one of you pointed out, everyone else is doing it. I decided to go with the flow. As it says in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence,” when the decade becomes fact, print the decade—or something like that.

As for me, the only date that matters is the one in which I close out the Baseball Prospectus annual and get to start looking forward to spring training and having the book in the hands of you all, whatever decade you feel like we’ll be in starting the day after tomorrow. I’m not picky when it comes to stuff like that.

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