Andy Pettitte has been pitching great since the All-Star break. Going into Monday night's start Pettitte was 3-1 in eight starts with a 2.79 ERA since the mid-summer classic.
The Orioles on the other hand have lived up to the hype. They have progressively gotten worse as the season has played on and they can yet again look forward to another meaningless September.
It seemed like the perfect match up, and Pettitte almost walked away perfect. The crafty old lefty had every pitching working and used impeccable control to make the O's look stupid for 6.2 innings. Baltimore looked disinterested in putting up a fight and with their recent trend of being on the losing end of history (the Buchholz no-hitter and the 30-3 loss to Texas in 2007) they seemed ripe for the taking.
Pettitte seemed on a mission, but history was not meant be on a cool Monday night. After making a slick play at third to steal a hit from Matt Weiters in the bottom of the sixth, the ball found its way to Jerry Hairston again with two outs in the seventh.
This time Hairston couldn't handle the hard grounder from Adam Jones. Pettitte still had the no-hitter intact and could have looked at Jonathan Sanchez for inspiration as he finished off a no-hitter earlier this year after Juan Uribe booted an easy grounder. But Pettitte hung an 0-2 fastball to Nick Markakis who promptly ripped it to left.
Pettitte got through the inning and completed eight innings only surrendering one more hit to the O's, a solo homer to the always annoying Melvin Mora.
It seems that after Pettitte struggled through the second half of last year he has reestablished himself as a force after the break. A reliable number three will be huge for the Yanks once the playoffs role around, and with CC on a dominant run and Burnett pitching well everywhere except Fenway, there seem to be few teams that will be able to match the Yankees starters come October.
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