Burnett was once again saying that Joe Girardi makes the decisions, and when the Yankees cut their rotation from five to six, Burnett won’t have a say in it.Coming into this series, winning the first and then losing the next two was the easy bet, and it's what I thought would happen. That said, a win by Burnett in game three might not be as big as Game 2 in '09, but it will be pretty big. Not only would the Yanks avoid dropping a fifth straight series to their arch rivals, but they would have shown that they could do three fairly important other things this series:
“That’s out of my hands,” he said.
Then he stopped himself.
“It’s not out of my hands,” he said. “Let me rephrase that. It’s not out of my hands. I can definitely take this opportunity to change some minds, for sure.”
...
“Believe it or not, I go out there every time with confidence,” he said. “It’s been an inning here or there, little things here or there. I do still believe in myself or else I wouldn’t be here. I don’t think I’m the type of person to waste my time or anybody else’s time, so I’m definitely still all about myself and still believe in myself, for sure.”
...
“It ain’t as big as the ’09 World Series,” he said. “So I’m going to attack it as my next start. We made a lot of adjustments, Larry and I, and I’m just going to go at it with an open mind again. I’m not going to put added pressure on myself. My numbers ain’t going to get dramatically better no matter how good I pitch the rest of the year, so it’s not about the numbers, it’s about getting on track. And it starts first pitch of the game, first batter of the game.”
1) CC can beat Boston this year.
2) The Yankees can score off Beckett this year (he had allowed just 3 ER in his four previous starts vs the Yanks in '11).
3) A.J. Burnett isn't utterly useless.
There's a better chance that he goes out and get hammered, but hey, one can dream, can't they?
