5 Things About New York Yankees' Pitching You Didn't Know

The first thing that pops into your head when you think of the New York Yankees is hitting, which is natural with players such as Ruth, Gehrig, DiMaggio, Mantle, Jackson and A-Rod on its roster over the seasons. However, Yankee pitching has obviously been a strong point, since no team could simply club its way to 26 World Series titles. The New York Yankees have had some wonderful pitchers during their time in the American League- Whitey Ford, Red Ruffing, Jack Chesbro, Lefty Gomez, Allie Reynolds, Vic Raschi, and Ron Guidry among them. Here are 5 interesting facts about New York Yankees' pitchers that you may not have known.

1. Mel Stottlemyre was pretty good!

The former pitching coach under Joe Torre came up in 1964 while the Yankees were in the midst of a tough pennant race and went 9-3 for the squad to help them to the AL flag. He followed that up with a 20-9 record in 1965 as the proud dynasty was in the beginning of its rapid decline. Mel was a 20 game loser in 1966 as New York finished a shocking last in the circuit, but his numbers didn't warrant losing that many games. He rebounded to win 20 games in 1968 and 21 in 1969 before going 61-59 over the next 4 campaigns. Sttotlemyre, a right-hander, was an excellent hitter for a pitcher, clocking 7 home runs and collecting 57 runs batted in. Stottlemyre, a 5 time All-Star, wound up with a 164-139 won-loss standard, hurling to a fine 2.97 earned run average in his 11 years with New York. His 40 shutouts have him tied for second on the team's list with Red Ruffing, just 5 behind Whitey Ford.

2. The Yankees have never had a 30 game winner!

This fact comes with an asterisk of sorts, since Chesbro did win 41 in 1904. But New York's next best season by one of its pitchers came from Carl Mays and Al Orth, who each won 27. As a matter of fact, no Yankee pitcher has won more than 25 games since Ron Guidry's incredible 25-3 season back in 1978, a span of 30 years.

3. Criticism of Joe Torre burning out his relievers may be warranted!

Of the Yankee pitchers that have made the most appearances in a single season in club history, a total of 10 of the top 12 came while Torre was manager, from 1996 through 2007. The first 9 on the list were all trotted out there day after day by Joe, including names such as Tom Gordon, Jeff Nelson, Luis Viscaino, Mike Stanton, Scott Proctor, and the all-time New York Yankee leader in single season appearances, Paul Quantrill, who had 86 in 2004 . In several of these instances these hurlers had little or nothing left in the tank by season's end, which fueled Torre critics' claims that he overused his bullpen.

4. No Yankee has managed to strike out as many as 250 batters in one season!

Guidry's 248 in 1978 are the most strikeouts by a New York pitcher ever in one campaign. Chesbro struck out 239 in his big year and David Cone had 222 in 1997. The most Roger Clemens fanned in his years as a Yankee was the 213 he whiffed in 2001. Many of the big strikeout pitchers the Yankees have had over the years, names like Clemens, Randy Johnson, Sam McDowell, and Luis Tiant, were well into the twilight of their careers when they joined the club.

5. The Yankees don't have a pitcher who struck out 2,000 hitters while playing for them!

This is indeed a strange tidbit of information considering their success, but it is true. Ford's 1,956 are the club record, followed by Guidry's 1,778. If left-hander Andy Pettitte strikes out 111 men this year, he will move past Lefty Gomez and Red Ruffing into third place all by himself on the Yankee strikeout roster.

http://www.baseball-reference.com/teams/NYY/leaders_pitch.shtml