If you didn’t hear, Mike Mussina was in the news last week as CC Sabathia attempted to duplicated Mussina’s 20-win season. Sabathia missed out on 20 wins, and Mussina remained the last Yankee to reach that feat for at least one more year.
Here’s what the Moose had to say:
"They weren't expecting me to be the No. 1 pitcher, but that's what they expected from him - to be the ace," said Mussina, who went 17-11 with a 3.15 ERA in his debut season with the Yankees in 2001. "He came to the highest-profile team with a monstrous contract and he's done exactly what they wanted him to do."
Moose was my favorite starter to watch last year on the Yanks. He didn’t break 90 with his fastball, but he had tremendous control and movement. His quirky knuckle-curve pitch also had great diving action that he buried in the dirt for strikeouts.
Besides his repertoire, I was in love with his mental aspect of pitching. Just the way he showed off his Stanford smarts while on the mound, and his ability to set up hitters so well amazed me. When I took the mound this past summer, I thought of myself as Moose. I didn’t have the velocity to overpower hitters, but I had the control and movement. That’s why I was one of the few people not surprised when the Moose won 20 last year.
