AJ Blows Up Like a Grenade

In the spirit of Jersey Shore Italy beginning tonight, AJ Burnett is the biggest grenade of all time. Only he can ruin a Yankees 18-7 victory. The Yankees offense gave Burnett a 13-1 lead in last night’s game against the White Sox, yet he was still unable to get through 5 innings for the win. He had to be pulled from the game in the middle of the 5th, after turning a 13-1 lead into 13-7. Yankee pitchers seem to struggle with enormous leads, as we saw Phil Hughes almost blow a large lead to Oakland 2 weeks ago.

Burnett continues to be the most frustrating pitcher to watch in all of baseball. You would think even he could manage to get a win with a 13-1 lead.

There is no possible way Joe Girardi can start Burnett in a playoff game. Colon, Garcia, Nova, and Hughes all deserve to start instead of him. If he does pitch, it is only because of the contract which the Yankees were dumb enough to give him. The only reason he is still in the rotation is because of his contract.

I think everyone needs to get over the idea that AJ has outstanding stuff. That is all we hear about him. Even when he pitches like crap, Girardi will protect him by saying he thought he had excellent stuff. I have said it before, Burnett is not that good. He gave up 13 hits to the White Sox in 4.1 innings. How is that pitching with dominating stuff? Additionally, it is not like last night’s performance is a random occurrence. We see performances like this way too much from him. A pitcher with such great stuff should not get beat up as much as he does.

Furthermore, he pitches for the Yankees, yet does not have over a .500 record. The Yankees are 97 games over .500 in the past 3 years, but Burnett is only 31-33. It is almost impossible for a pitcher pitching on a team so good to have such a poor record. Any decent pitcher would figure out a way to be better than how he has performed.

It has been this way his entire career and continued as a Yankee. Before he signed with the Yankees, he had been a .500 pitcher for his career, but the excuse for him was that he was pitching for poor teams. Now he is pitching for an extremely talented team, and the results have not changed. Bill Parcells used to say “you are what you are”, and Burnett is not very good.

By Rob Bonanni

@nypuddingsports