Andy Pettitte Set to Announce Retirement

Andy Pettitte will announce his retirement from baseball Friday, ending months of speculation about whether or not he would return for the 2011 season.

YES Network play-by-play man and ESPN 1050 radio host Michael Kay was first to break the news of Pettitte's decision.

Pettitte, according to Kay's YES Network colleague Jack Curry, will fly to New York on Thursday to meet with Yankees officials. The Yankees have called a press conference for 10:30 a.m. ET on Friday in which Pettitte will formally announce he is calling it quits.

The 38-year-old's status has loomed over the Yankees' entire offseason, particularly since the club lost out to the Phillies in its pursuit of Cliff Lee. New York is bringing back only three proven starters in 2011 -- CC Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Phil Hughes -- with the likes of Ivan Nova, Sergio Mitre, Bartolo Colon and Freddy Garcia poised to duke it out for the final two rotation spots.

That lack of quality starting pitching is a scary proposition for a team expected to win the World Series every year, and though a Pettitte comeback seemed increasingly unlikely as spring training grew closer, the left-hander had remained as a possible cure-all to the Yankees' pitching worries until Thursday.

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Pettitte, whose career spanned the last 16 seasons, went 11-3 with a 3.28 ERA for the Yankees last year in an injury-shortened campaign. If his major league career truly is over, he will finish it with a 240-138 record and a 3.88 ERA. Pettitte spent 13 of his 16 years in the big leagues with the Yankees. He played for the Astros from 2004-06.

With a 19-10 record and 3.38 ERA in 42 career postseason starts, Pettitte is the winningest pitcher in playoff history. He also ranks second in strikeouts, third in wins and fourth in innings pitched in Yankees franchise history.

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