And that’s what Pettitte, who has won a passel of big postseason games during seven years of playoff pitching, did. He won 17 games and had a nifty 2.39 ERA to go with them. Down the stretch, he was a horse, going 4-0 with a 1.86 ERA in September.

El Duque is a different story. He claims to be 36 years old, but he’s really at least 39 and he had been breaking down. He missed all of the 2003 season with injuries, and had just 15 starts for the Yankees in 2004. He went 8-2, but the Yankees decided he wasn’t going to be able to shoulder a full load as a starter, so they let him go. That estimation was correct. After a hot start this year, Hernandez finished the year with just 22 starts and was ineffective until his huge relief stint against Boston.

But that’s been the defining characteristic of El Duque’s career — he comes up big in the playoffs. He didn’t pitch in the ALCS, but other than Neal Cotts’ two-thirds of an inning in Game 1, no one else in the bullpen did either. And if the White Sox get in a situation in which they need help early in a game, El Duque is the most likely pitcher to get the nod and the most likely to shut down the opposition.

Then there’s Contreras. The Yankees outbid everyone — Boston especially — for him three seasons ago when he defected from Cuba. But in one season and half of another in the Bronx, he had a talent for imploding in big games — the Armando Benitez of starting pitchers. Before the trade deadline last year, the Yankees traded him to Chicago for Esteban Loaiza, who was in the final year of his contract.

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Loaiza was a bigger bust the Contreras appeared to be, so the Yankees let him go as a free agent to the Nationals while they pursued free agents Jaret Wright and Carl Pavano, both of whom were either injured or terrible or both for most of the season.

The bottom line was the Yanks ended up with nothing for four pitchers and the two teams that got them ended up in the World Series. A lot of people will see poetic justice in that.

George Steinbrenner will only see red.

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