Be honest: who thought Andy Pettitte would have the lowest ERA in the Yankees rotation this late in the season? If you just raised your hand, you’re a dirty rotten liar or Hiro Nakamura. Shame on you (Unless you’re Hiro, then Arogato). Overall, I’d say the pinstriped rotation has been pretty damn successful to this point. Okie-doke, well let’s do a little analysis.

CC Sabathia: 4.00 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 30 BBs/76 Ks, 92.1 IP. The big guy had an uncharacteristically good April (3.12 ERA with 29 Ks in 34.2 innings). Then, in May, which is usually when the Jolly guy from California typically starts to heat up, CC did a solid Jeff-Weaver-as-a-Yank impersonation with a 5.15 ERA (cue dramatic gasp). While CC’s walks and strikeouts didn’t change much from one month to the other, but he allowed 8 long-balls in May as opposed to just two in April. After a .243 BABIP in April, hitters were reaching at a .293 rate on balls in play in May. So, you could say CC was the victim of bad luck in the year’s 5th month. He’s back to a 3.43 ERA in June over 21 innings, although this month’s BABIP is relatively high at .287. What’s not great for the Ace is that over his career, he has a 4.84 ERA in July…the good news is that his August ERA is 2.94, and from September 1st on wards he has a 2.54 ERA. So, there might be more bumpy roads ahead for CC, but once we hit the dead of summer, he’ll start to heat back up. But, who knows, CC was dominant this April, which he never is, then lousy in May (which he never is) so maybe he’ll be Cy Young Material in in July….I guess we’ll see.

AJ Burnett: 4.33 ERA, 1.40 WHIP, 33 BBs/63 Ks, 87.1 IP. The most common literary reference associated with this guy is Jekyll and Hyde. It’s either ,Wow. AJ Burnett with eight shutout innings and ten K’s. Or, Wow, AJ Burnett with one inning of twenty-eight run ball and he just wrote the opposing offense a letter thanking them for only hitting six homers. Look at AJ’s stats this way: In his Bad starts (7 of them) AJ has an 8.69 ERA. In his Good starts (7 of them), AJ has a 0.92 ERA. Do you see the crazy discrepancies between his bad half and his good half? When the good guy shows up, all of New York smiles, and there’s rainbows and unicorns and all that stuff. Bad AJ…watch out. They can try and teach AJ consistency, but I doubt that’ll ever happen. Just got to hope the right side of the coin shows when he takes the hill.

Andy Pettitte:  2.47 ERA, 1.11 WHIP, 25 BBs/62 Ks, 87.1 IP. The veteran lefty might very well start the All-Star game this year. Who’d a thunk it? Sure, there’s been some luck. Andy’s FIP is 3.80, so expect that ERA to go up. Still, that’s not shabby. Also, he’s giving hitters a .258 BABIP this season. In his career it’s been .314 (.301 last year), so Andy’s had his fair share of good bounces and whatnot. The bad news: this means Andy is going to get worse. The good news: he’s been pretty damn good, and if he goes back to being just above-average, well that’s still a useful piece in the rotation. Whatever happens, Andy’s doing better than anticipated in what could be his final season.

Javier Vazquez: 5.01 ERA, 1.29 WHIP, 30 BBs/62 Ks, 70 IP. I don’t know what happened to Javier Vazquez between May 1st and May 12th, but whatever it was, it’s awesome. Javy had a 9.00 ERA in April. He welcomed in May with a 3 inning start that ended 5 runs later in the Bronx. Then, it was “Hello, and welcome back Mr. Vazquez. It’s a pleasure to see you. Your imposter has recently been jailed, and we’re glad to see you taking over.” Since then: 2.68 ERA, 0.91 WHIP, and 42 K’s over 47 innings. Umm, hey there Ace? So for all the chatter about Javy’s horrendous Bronx reunion, Javy’s actually ended up being a valuable piece of the staff.

Phil Hughes: 3.11 ERA, 1.13 WHIP, 22 BBs/74 Ks, 75.1 IP. If Phil Hughes wasn’t going to be limited by the number of innings he can pitch this year, you’d have to consider him a pretty strong Cy Young contender. Okay, maybe he’s a contender regardless. Is he getting lucky? Well his career BABIP is .298, and this year its .295. So, not really. He’s just finally living up to the hype. His FIP is 2.91, so you’d actually expect his ERA to be lower. That’s impressive, eh? Well, Joe G. is going to spread out Hughsie’s starts over the next month or so to keep those innings down, but there isn’t much to say about Hughes except that those innings should continue to be dominant in Philly’s return to the rotation.