The secret behind time travel is startlingly simple to understand, albeit, erm, difficult to do: one must be able to master the fourth dimension, and to exist outside of not just space, but time as well.

Baseball players are not supposed to be able to master time.

Okay, so maybe Mariano Rivera did it in his Age 38 (and 39) year, but he’s Mo, and we all know the traditional rules of time do not apply.

No one has ever made the case that the rules of time do not apply to Andy Pettitte, and yet, here we are, on May 26th, and Pettitte has an ERA of 2.62 and a WHIP of 1.22.

As I’ve written before, Pettitte isn’t necessarily striking out more guys, or giving up any less hits–in fact, he’s giving up more fly ball outs than previously, and that’s usually a bad sign. The peripherals suggest he is due for regression, but even so, through eight starts there are only two he did not pitch more than five innings–and one of those was due to injury.

The start in Tampa Bay, when he was charged for seven runs, appeared to be one of those karma-calling starts, where regression was due to happen, but as we so often see with a good pitcher, Pettitte made whatever adjustments he needed to make, and night, in Minnesota, threw 94 pitches of two run ball through eight innings.

It’s much too early to make any indication that Pettitte is having himself a significant season, but it’s still remarkable that Pettitte, at age 38, is pitching as well as he is, and as deep into ball games as he is

The Core Four are having an interesting season, thus far–Jeter is struggling, Mariano has struggled recently (though he looked much better in the second game tonight), Posada has a broken foot–but Pettitte is still there, motoring along, pitching as though time itself was a dimension easily overcome.