'Pretty good' Pettitte grinds out another postseason win

PHILADELPHIA -- Nobody does "pretty good" better than Andy Pettitte. I mean that as a compliment, I think. He's not great. Of that, I'm positive. He's not an immortal, certainly not as immortal as his postseason résumé would indicate, given that he has more playoff victories than any pitcher in baseball history.

Pettitte padded that MLB record Saturday night in Game 3 of the World Series, picking up his 17th career postseason victory in the Yankees' 8-5 win against Philadelphia. So how did Pettitte pitch Saturday night? You know how he pitched. This was Andy Pettitte, not someone sensational. He was pretty good. That's all he was.

But that was enough. Pretty good was plenty good in Game 3, when the Yankees went off on the Phillies for five extra-base hits -- one more than they'd managed in Games 1 and 2 combined -- including home runs from previously World Series-hitless Alex Rodriguez and Nick Swisher.

In baseball terms Pettitte earned the win, although I'm not sure earned is what he did. He went six innings and gave up four runs. In more baseball terminology, that's not a "quality start," but it was more than enough to win this game. The New York offense was so good that it made a resounding winner of Pettitte while allowing Yankees manager Joe Girardi to rest his set-up man, Mariano Rivera, and to save his closer, also Mariano Rivera, for the final two outs.

For Pettitte, it was another night at the ballpark. He showed up, made a lot of pitches, ate some innings and benefited from the eight players behind him -- and don't look at me like that, either. Look at this stat:

In 15 seasons in the big leagues, Pettitte has pitched on 15 winning teams. That's every single one of them. He has spent 12 years with the Yankees, and three with Houston. In those 15 years, Pettitte has gone 229-135, which means he has been 94 games above .500. That's terrific, until you read the following sentence:

In those 15 years, Pettitte's teams have been 410 games over .500.

In other words, pitching every fourth or fifth day, Pettitte has won at about the same rate as his teams have won. Does that make him a bad pitcher? Of course not. But it doesn't make him great. Neither does his career ERA of 3.91, which is better than the league average in that time, but not astoundingly better. How does Pettitte's career ERA compare to the ERA for baseball in general from 1995-2009? Come on, now. If you've been paying attention, you already know the answer: His ERA compares ... pretty good.

Jeez, this is starting to feel like a rip of Pettitte, and it's not. The man has won 229 games. He has struck out 2,150 batters. Those are great numbers. He has allowed more than 3,000 hits. And 250 home runs. And nearly 1,000 walks. And ...

I'm doing it again, aren't I? Sorry. Sometimes, though, you have to call it as you see it, and this is how I see Andy Pettitte: I see him as a guy who was fortunate to be drafted by the richest franchise in baseball, which surrounded him with offensive talent and Mariano Rivera. Pettitte was good enough to earn a spot in the Yankees' rotation, and to keep it, and to get the ball every four or five games for a long time. And the wins ensued.

But greatness never did. In 458 career starts, which ranks 73rd all time, he has thrown four shutouts -- which doesn't rank in the top 1,000 all time.

Read that again, please.

Pettitte's four shutouts are half as many as someone named "Randy Wolf," and three less than Jeff Weaver, who is 99-118 in his blah career. Pettitte has two All-Star Game appearances in 15 years, which is two more than I have, but not the résumé of an immortal.

And yet this is beyond dispute: Pettitte ranks among the all-time greats in one of the most important statistics in baseball. His 17 career postseason wins are two more than John Smoltz's previous record. The rest of the top five, before Pettitte came along: Tom Glavine (14 postseason wins), Roger Clemens (12), Greg Maddux (11) and Curt Schilling (11). All of those pitchers have had the advantage of pitching in the era of league championship series and even division series -- which previous postseason gods like Whitey Ford and Bob Gibson didn't have -- but those five pitchers are sure-thing Hall of Famers (although the steroid issue might keep Clemens out of the Hall) while Pettitte is not.

If the Hall voters let down their guard, Pettitte's 17 postseason wins could get him into Cooperstown, although his career postseason ERA of 3.85 is only, um, pretty good. That postseason ERA rose a little Saturday night thanks to those four earned runs in six innings, when Pettitte was shaky from the start. He has an excuse, though, a legit one. The game was delayed more than an hour by rain, and the delay came shortly before the first pitch.

Andy Pettitte even chips in with an RBI in the Game 3 win. (Getty Images)

"I was in a real good place mentally, and right as I was ready to walk out the door, they shut me down," Pettitte said.

And after he got it going again, and the game finally did start?

"It never felt like it felt really good," he said. "I started to get a few balls where I wanted to get them, but it was a battle tonight. I wasn't able to get ahead. I wasn't able to get my breaking ball over. It was a grind tonight."

The grind started immediately. Jimmy Rollins led off with a sharp single off the glove of Alex Rodriguez, then stole second so easily that catcher Jorge Posada didn't even think about throwing to the bag. Rollins would have stolen third, but Chase Utley fouled that pitch.

Pettitte stranded Rollins, but he gave up three runs in the second -- first Jayson Werth's solo home run, then a bases-loaded walk of Rollins, then a sacrifice fly by Shane Victorino. Pettitte cruised for three innings -- he was "great" for those three innings, legitimately -- before giving up an enormous home run to Werth in the sixth. Pettitte finished the inning, then was done.

But he had done enough. The Yankees battered Cole Hamels for five runs in 4 1/3 innings, then tacked on a run in each one-inning appearance by the next three Philadelphia pitchers, and that was that. New York, with its three-man rotation and one-man bullpen, leads the World Series 2-1 -- and ace CC Sabathia starts Sunday in Game 4. After losing the opener, New York is now in command.

The Yankees are in command because of Saturday night, whenAndy Pettitte was pretty good. That's all he was, but being pretty good was enough.

When you're Andy Pettitte, it usually is.