I respectfully disagree. Here are my reasons Burnett on short rest was a better idea than starting Gaudin:- Burnett has performed well on short rest in the past. We don't have many games worth of a sample size to judge it traditionally with accuracy, but the fine authors at Fangraphs.com have shown using Pitch F/X that his "stuff" doesn't deteriorate much when he does. When the game was over, Pitch F/X showed his stuff once again did not suffer from short rest. What was to blame was his lack of control; but how can we be certain that his lack of control was due to short rest and not due to AJ Burnett being a pitcher who's known in his career for having average control (over a season) at best?- Chad Gaudin is a right-handed sinker/slider pitcher. These generally do extremely well against other right-handed batters but extremely poorly against lefties. Gaudin in particular has an **extreme** platoon split over his career, showing that he's an ace against righties but the average lefty OPSes .820 off of him. Gaudin was very helpful during the season for the Yankees as a starter, but it would be foolish to let lefties like Ryan Howard, Raul Ibanez and Chase Utley (as well as switch hitters like Shane Victorino and Jimmy Rollins) combine 15 or 20 plate appearances against him in a single game -- let alone the World Series.