WHY I DON'T BUY BURNETT'S LAST START

(Photo: Getty)
Before Thursday night's Yankees/Red Sox rubber game, I didn't have a very good feeling on what the end result would be. AJ Burnett was going, and in the month of August he's been terrible. Coming into his start, he went 1-2 with a 11.91 ERA in August, and in his final two August outings he combined to go 6.2 innings while allowing 16 earned runs to the bottom feeding Minnesota Twins and Baltimore Orioles. Those two teams rank 13th and 8th, respectively, in runs scored in the American League.

Burnett ended up going 5.1 innings, allowing just two runs, striking out four and allowing two walks to the Red Sox who have alternated spots with the Yankees as the top run scoring team in the American League. He also surprised everyone by not hitting a batter or throwing a wild pitch. All kidding aside, it was a far cry from what just about everyone expected out of him.

With this good start under his belt, I'm sure there are plenty of people out there who think that this could be a start of a turnaround for AJ I don't buy it for one second. Burnett has been too inconsistent for my liking. It was the first time since June 29th against the Milwaukee Brewers that he lowered his ERA, and he has still yet to pick up a quality start since that game as well. A few weeks ago I proclaimed that Burnett's stuff is on the decline. You can read my piece titled WHY BURNETT'S STUFF IS ON A DECLINE here.

He's clearly not the pitcher he once was, and he has to be able to become more of a pitcher and not just a thrower. Even Al Leiter pointed that out during the YES telecast in the middle of AJ's start.

The other day manager Joe Girardi announced that he would trim his six man rotation down to five, and he wants to figure it out soon. Read that story HERE.
(Photo: Getty)
It'll be either Phil Hughes or AJ Burnett who gets bumped to the bullpen, and Girardi has said that he won't base Hughes' and Burnett's recent outings in Fenway alone to make his decision. But, Girardi would be hypocritical if he did choose Burnett over Phil Hughes because Burnett has had only one good start over the last month or so, and Hughes, for the most part, has been pretty solid in that same span.



--Jesse Schindler, BYB Staff Writer




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