Major League Baseball

Burnett feeling the heat, not bringing it

Published Jun. 28, 2010 7:47 p.m. ET

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Bob Klapisch

You could rightfully call it a Tale of Two Pitchers — the industry’s reclamation project vs. the emerging flop of the year. The principals are A.J. Burnett and Carl Pavano, who’ve experienced one of the craziest role-reversals in recent memory.

It was only two years ago that the Yankees were so smitten with Burnett, they joked in the dugout about asking the Blue Jays to preserve his arm in the final weeks of the season.

Burnett, after all, was about to storm free agency with a killer-fastball and an equally unhittable curveball that put the right-hander on par with the iPhone: He was on the Yankees’ must-have list.

Pavano? He’d been New York’s biggest joke, making just 26 starts between 2005-2008 because of injuries. He finally earned the ultimate tabloid kiss-off — American Idle.

But the events of this past weekend proved how quickly and precipitously baseball’s trend-lines can reverse. In fact, the performance of both pitchers on Saturday couldn’t have been more different. Pavano returned to the Big Apple to crush Johan Santana in the Twins’ 6-0 shut out over the Mets.

Everything about Pavano looked different. His sinker dropped like it’d been shot out of the sky, his demeanor was confidence, even his appearance had been altered. Pavano was sporting a thick, unflattering mustache that, who knows, he might’ve grown as a disguise.

Burnett’s transformation has been even more radical. He’s hardly the pitcher the Yankees remember from his Toronto prime, instead getting knocked out by the Dodgers — his fifth loss this month.

No Yankee fan would’ve ever believed Pavano, second in the American League with a 1.03 WHIP, could be this good or that Burnett could be this awful. His downward spiral forced manager Joe Girardi into a hasty vote of confidence — Burnett will make his next start, the manager said — although Yankee officials admit they’re baffled at how helpless the right-hander has been of late.

Just how deep has the slump been? Burnett isn’t just 0-5 this month, he has an unthinkable 11.35 ERA. Of the 29 runs he’s allowed, 19 have come in the first three innings. While much has been made of Burnett’s decline during pitching coach Dave Eiland’s absence, Girardi correctly noted, “it’s not like A.J. hasn’t (already) pitched 12 years in the big leagues. He knows what to do.”

One of the culprits could be the decline in Burnett’s fastball, down 2 mph from its peak 95 mph in 2007. While still possessing elite-caliber stuff, Burnett’s velocity is now below what talent evaluators consider the threshold for making hitters uncomfortable.

“(Ninety five) is where hitters have to start to cheat a little,” said one scout, in reference to swinging early. Given an extra fraction of a second before having to commit, hitters are seizing on Burnett’s mistakes, which are plentiful.

Another scout said, “his location is awful,” pointing out that Burnett won’t (or can’t) learn the value of corner-strikes. He never had to worry about finesse when he was with the Marlins and Jays and his fastball inched into the upper 90s. But now at age 34, with his gun-readings in subtle decay, it might be too late to embrace a new philosophy.

That’s bad news for the Yankees, who are counting on Burnett to line up behind CC Sabathia in the postseason. The rotation’s success, in fact, is predicated on Sabathia and Burnett taking pressure off 37-year-old Andy Pettitte and 24-year-old Phil Hughes, who will be carefully monitored as he approaches his 180-inning limit for the season.

It’s crazy to imagine that Pavano would emerge as the better asset, but just ask the Twins how much they appreciate his renaissance. Manager Ron Gardenhire called the complete game shutout “huge for us” as it saved Minnesota from a three-game sweep by the Mets.

This was no stand-alone work of art, either. Just last Sunday, Pavano beat Roy Halladay, 4-1, in a complete game. He may not throw as hard as he did in 2004 with the Marlins, but Pavano is no less effective.

“He kept us off-balance all day,” said Jeff Francoeur.

Just don’t expect Pavano to shake a fist at the New York fans who hated on him for those four years. Those grievances are part of a past life, never to be revisited. Or as Pavano said after the game, “it (was) just another start.”

Santant's struggles

The Mets finished interleague play with an encouraging 13-5 record, including taking back-to-back series from the Tigers and Twins. That’s plenty of incentive for GM Omar Minaya to pursue Cliff Lee, especially as Johan Santana plunges toward mediocrity.

The great lefthander is just 5-5 this season, and only 1-3 with a 4.68 ERA in June. While he’s been victimized by a shameful lack of run production — the Mets score only 2.8 runs per game for Santana, 5.1 for their other starters — there are enough stats to suggest he’s in trouble.

Opponents’ contact ratio against Santana is at a career high this year, his strikeouts per nine innings is at a career low, his fastball velocity is at a career low, as well.

And then there’s the accusation of sexual assault, brought by a Florida woman following an incident last October. Although Santana avoided prosecution, he admitted to having sex with his accuser in an open area of a Fort Myers golf course.

Mets’ ownership was deeply embarrassed by the revelation, having assumed Santana was one of their stand-up guys: a non-steroid user, non-drinker and faithful family man.

Now the question is how the allegations will affect him on the mound. Santana allowed the Twins four runs in the first inning on Saturday, effectively dooming the Mets to their 6-0 defeat. Afterward, he insisted he was “not at all” distracted, but the results said otherwise.

Until Santana can make himself whole, the Mets will have to be aggressive in their pursuit of Lee. They have no choice, really: a postseason berth looks more attainable than ever and no one knows if Santana can take them there.

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