Andy Pettitte Retires: Power Ranking the Southpaw's 10 Greatest Starts

Andy Pettitte announced his retirement from baseball at Yankee Stadium today, bringing an end to a 16-year career that saw him a 240-138 record between his time with the New York Yankees and Houston Astros.

The five-time World Champion was a fan favorite everywhere he went and he shone in the playoffs as if it was his own stage. His 19 postseason wins are the most in baseball history.

The winningest pitcher of the last decade, Pettitte today leaves a legacy that is only bettered by Whitey Ford among Yankee southpaws. That was four decades ago, and Pettitte has certainly left his mark on the game.

While postseason victories and playoff clinches became his calling card, Pettitte had his moments in the regular season, too.

With only 10 spots to fill, there's a lot of games that had to be left out, but here's a list of his 10 greatest games.

Game 2 of the World Series with the Florida Marlins may just be Pettitte’s greatest postseason start. Unfortunately, people may overlook it because of his final start six days later in which the Yanks gave him zero run support against MVP Josh Beckett and the Fish claimed the crown.

That second game of the series was Pettitte at his best. After watching his side lose the series opener the previous night, the lefty was one out, one error,  away from a complete game shutout. His final line read 8.2 innings with one unearned run on six hits and a walk and seven strikeouts.

Staked to a first-inning three-run lead on Hideki Matsui’s homer, Pettitte faced the minimum through the first four innings with the only two hits—both infield singles—erased on inning-ending double plays.

Pettitte threw 111 pitches, 70 for strikes, and he took the hill in the ninth inning with a six to zero lead. Luis Castillo singled back up the middle with one out before Aaron Boone booted Miggy Cabrera’s grounder which represented the 27th out of the game.

Derek Lee ripped a single to right to score Castillo from second, prompting Joe Torre to go to Jose Contreras for the final out of the game. Still, that doesn't detract from his outing.

In the ninth start of his final year with the Astros in 2006, Pettitte threw the fourth, and final, shutout of his Major League career in a three to zero victory over Colorado.

Pettitte did virtually nothing wrong in the entire game, limiting the Rockies to three hits and a walk over a 119-pitch clinic.

Only three balls left the infield in the first seven innings and only one Rockie made it past first base the entire game.

The complete game was one of two this season, although his second, a one to zero loss at home to the Cubs in August, is much less memorable.

When you’re talking about Pettitte, the Yankees and their rivals, few performances top the shutout he tossed at the Stadium to beat the Mets in 2002.

Pettitte struck out eight and allowed three hits and two walks in a game that saw him called for a balk trying to catch Jay Payton off first and then pick off bumbling Jeromy Burnitz in the same inning.

Mets’ Steve Trachsel was coming off his first 10-game winning season in three years and Pettitte was trying to continue the form that almost earned him a Cy Young award just 18 months earlier. From the get-go, though, there was only pitcher worth watching on the mound in the Bronx on this day.

Pettitte’s career high single-game strikeout record is 12, achieved twice and initially set during the first game of a Red Sox-Yankees double header in The Bronx on Sept. 16 1997.

In the 99th start of his career, Pettitte surrendered five hits—including four singles—over eight scoreless innings. He retired 11 of the final 12 batters he faced, interrupted only by a Nomar Garciaparra triple, and the victory gave him his 18th of the year.

Nobody was in more of a hurry to leave New York than Boston’s so-called “designated hitter” Reggie Jefferson, who collected a golden sombrero for his participation, or lack thereof, in the game.

Pettitte really can turn the clock back with the best of them, can’t he?

In one of his finest regular season starts as a Yankee, Pettitte dominated the Baltimore Orioles on Aug. 31, 2009 to the tune of two hits and a run over eight innings.

Pettitte was perfect  through 6.2 innings, retiring the first 20 batters he faced, before Jerry Hairston booted Adam Jones’ routine ground ball at third base. The following batter Nick Markakis broke up the no-hitter with a two-out single to left field and Melvin More shattered all hopes of a shutout with a solo homer to lead off the eighth.

Pettite’s retired the final three batters he faced, including striking out his seventh and eighth batters of the afternoon, before turning the ball over to the bullpen who protected his 12th win of the year.

If I had to pick one game, the 10-strikeout, one-run beat down against Boston has to rank right up there with the best of them. Looking at the bigger picture, though, this victory came in the middle of one of the best pitching spells of his life.

The win was his fifth straight victory and it was followed up with a road trip that included nine strike outs in Anaheim and one-hitting the A’s over eight innings in Oakland. Don’t forget the nine-strikeout complete game loss to Seattle, too, that preceded him winning nine of his final 10 starts that year and posting a 21-8 record.

Pettitte was in a rich vein of form and the Yankees rode it all the way to the World Series.

On May 29, 2000, Pettitte threw his first of three complete games that season, and this may be the best of them all.

In a lightning-quick game that lasted just two-and-a-half hours, Pettitte out-dueled Oakland’s Omar Olivares in a masterful two-hit showpiece.

Unlike some of Pettitte’s games in the middle of his career, he didn’t need to strike out seven or eight guys to handcuff the A’s. He simply hit his spots, kept the ball in the infield and let his defense work behind him…something that ultimately became one of his calling cards.

Pettitte walked one and struck out three and he was working on a one-hit shutout when second baseman Randy Velarde took his one to one offering to left-centerfield with one away in the bottom of the ninth.

Pettitte got his shutout exactly one month later in Detroit, but considering how well he pitched against Oakland, this game was the highlight of his 2000 regular season that eventually led to the playoffs and a Subway Series championship victory over the Mets.

By almost any standard, Pettitte’s five-inning performance at home to the Baltimore Orioles on Sept. 21, 2008, would be easily forgotten.

Seven hits, three runs, a walk and three strikeouts don’t exactly scream out to you, until you realize that Pettitte was New York’s last ever regular season starter at Yankee Stadium AND that the first of those three seemingly innocuous strikeouts was the 2,000th  of his career.

Leading off the second inning, Ramon Hernandez struck out swinging on a one to two pitch to make Pettitte the 63^rd Major Leaguer (and I believe just the third active at the time) to join the 2KK Club.

In one of his most average performances ever, Pettitte received a standing ovation when he left the game, not because of what he did in the last 90 minutes, but for what he contributed over the last decade.

"Andy was raised in this organization, went through the Minor Leagues and pitched in so many big games here," Joe Girardi said at the time. "This is not a playoff game, but probably one of the biggest games he'll ever pitch at Yankee Stadium."

It’s times like these that make you appreciate the game for what it was, as well as what it continues to be.

The 2009 postseason really belonged to Pettitte, who claimed another piece of the MLB history book by becoming the first pitcher to start and win three series-clinching playoff games.

The culmination of this came in Game six of the World Series against Philly, the last Fall Classic of Pettitte’s career.

ESPN’s Gene Wojciechowski called Joe Girardi “crazy” for using Pettitte on three days’ rest, especially considering how AJ Burnett blew up in Game 5. He said the manager was “pushing one button too many” by going with a three-man rotation, while Newsday’s Wallace Matthews said he would by “iffy”.

The 37-year-old Pettitte wasn’t his sparkling best, but he got the job done and he did it well considering he was on short rest. He scattered four hits and yielded three runs over 5.2 innings for his 18th postseason victory and New York’s 27th World Series.

When your team only pushes one run across the plate, you know there’s only one way you’re going to win that game.

In Game 5 of the ’96 World Series against Atlanta, a fresh-faced Pettitte provided the answer to his team’s offensive woes.

By all accounts, Pettitte should have been nervous. It was just his sixth postseason start ever, his second in the World Series, and in his previous outing in his Fall Class debut, he was tagged for seven runs in 2.1 frames.

In front of more than 51,000 people at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, Pettitte shut the Braves down for 8.1 innings. He scattered five hits and three walks and didn’t allow a base runner past second until Chipper Jones was stranded at third in bottom of the ninth.

That was the closest the Braves came to rallying since the sixth inning when the first two men reached base. Two batters laster and the inning was dead and the Braves were again without a run.

First, Pettitte barehanded a bunt and made the tough play throwing across his body force the forceout. Then he fielded a comebacker and started a one to six to three double play to end the threat.

This victory gave the Yankees a three to two lead in the best-of-seven series and New York claimed the championship two days later at home.

The New York Times' Ken Plutnicki summed it up best yesterday when he said: "Pettitte went on the become the most winning pitcher in postseason history, but no victory was better than his in Game five."