CLEVELAND – For a generation, it was as much a part of October as fun Snickers bars and pumpkin spice lattes. Andy Pettitte made 44 starts in baseball’s postseason and logged so many innings that no one else got within 50. And every time he took the mound, Pettitte knew the anticipation.

“I was going to throw a hundred pitches no matter what,” Pettitte said late Friday in familiar surroundings: the clubhouse of the New York Yankees on the brink of a pennant. “It’s just a different game now.”

So it was in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series, when the Yankees and Cleveland Guardians somehow escaped without every pitching arm in a sling. Surgeons across the country must have been fascinated by the Yankees’ 8-6 win.

Fourteen pitchers took the mound at Progressive Field, up from 15 in Game 3. The turnover has led to exciting late-inning drives in a series that has been far more exciting from game to game than its National League counterpart.

However, both series have something in common: neither had a game in which both starters lasted five innings. And almost every reliever seems to have been spent.

“The game is built on bullpens now,” said Pettitte, now a special adviser to the Yankees. “(Teams) bring it together, and that’s hard. Now that I’ve been there all year, you can see how the game is so different than when I played it. It’s just a new brand of baseball. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but teams are built for it now. When I pitched, relievers weren’t built for that.”

In the 1995 postseason, Pettitte’s first, there were 31 games in which starters threw at least 100 pitches. In the 2012 postseason, his last, there were 29 such games. This year we’ve had two so far, from Zack Wheeler of the Philadelphia Phillies and Luis Severino of the New York Mets.

In the 2009 postseason alone, Andy Pettitte racked up 30 2/3 innings across five starts. (Photo: Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

It would make more sense if the relievers dominated. That’s not what we’ve seen this month, and yet teams continue to try to find their way to a title.

Before Game 4 on Friday, the Yankees planned to give the night off to Luke Weaver, who had pitched in every postseason game and surrendered David Fry’s walk-off homer in Game 3. But even without their best reliever — and with his replacement, Tommy Kahnle, throwing all the changes to get the save while Weaver warmed up — the Yankees expected minimal work from starter Luis Gil.

Gil was as fresh as he could be after not throwing in almost three weeks. Gil, a leading candidate for the AL Rookie of the Year Award, was only adequate in September, with a 4.00 ERA, but he lasted at least five innings in all five appearances.

So it was startling – even for Yankees manager Aaron Boone himself, it seemed – to hear this after the game:

“The big thing was Luis got us four innings,” Boone said, adding that he knew it sounded light. “I actually kept it at 75, 80 places. I think he ended up rolling 80 (actually 79), probably even more than we actually like.

It’s all an educated guess, but it underlines every pitching move a manager makes from March to November: How long will each pitcher be effective, given how much rest he’s had? Now add in the complications of the postseason, where the competition is better and the stakes are more intense, and this is what you get.

The starters aren’t trained to pitch deep in games anyway, and now they’re at the end of a long season. And the relievers are not only taxed, but are also better known to hitters for repeat appearances.

“Guys have thrown a lot of innings and guys may be tired,” said Kahnle, who acknowledged he would probably have to throw a few fastballs next time. “But I would say the adrenaline plays a big role in these games, so you don’t really notice it until you get out.”

In this third appearance of the ALCS, Tommy Kahnle threw 18 turnovers to earn the save in Game 4. (Photo: Jason Miller / Getty Images)

However, you notice it in the lack of command. A tired pitcher can often still throw as hard as usual. But the ability to repeat mechanics suffers, leading to mistakes in the offensive zone.

“It’s mid-to-late October,” said Austin Hedges, the Guardians’ veteran catcher. “Everyone has been training since the offseason to prepare for a six-month season. As much as your goal is to win the World Series, there are only a handful of teams that play that long and it’s exhausting.

“You can see it in the past. There are plenty of pitchers who have pitched a lot in the playoffs and then they come back the next year and they’re just not the same, just because of that whole extra month, and also the pressure of every moment is heavy. So that’s very real.

“But it is also something they have to be able to respond to. I feel like their team is experiencing the same thing. They have a good bullpen, but they’re not necessarily pitching the way I’m sure they would like to.”

The Guardians’ bullpen had a 2.57 ERA in the regular season, the best of any team since the 2013 Kansas City Royals. In the postseason, however, Cleveland’s relievers were much more ordinary, posting a 3.83 ERA. The Yankees’ tired (but less) group fared better, at 2.97.

Cleveland closer Emmanuel Clase, who gave up just five earned runs in the regular season, has now allowed eight in October. After losing the save in Game 3 and losing Game 4, his ERA is 10.29. Manager Stephen Vogt said Clase’s problems were the field’s location and a Yankees team that led the majors in walks and waited for errors.

“That’s what the Yankees do very well,” Vogt said. “They approach your pitchers really well, and then they get pitches over the middle. They don’t miss them, and they’ve really benefited.”

Whether it’s loud home runs or soft contact, the Yankees have made short work of Emmanuel Clase. (Photo: Jason Miller/Getty Images)

He’s right about that: the Yankees have delivered some extraordinary at-bats this postseason, with Gleyber Torres and Giancarlo Stanton being just as dangerous as Juan Soto and Aaron Judge. While Judge and Stanton homered off Clase in Game 3, it was Anthony Rizzo, Anthony Volpe, Alex Verdugo and Torres who targeted him Friday with singles and soft contact.

Cleveland has gotten 15 outs from a starter just once this postseason, when Matthew Boyd held the Yankees to one run over five innings in Game 3. Tanner Bibee, the nominal ace, lasted just 39 pitches on Tuesday, so short that he ‘On Saturday we start with short rest in Game 5.

“The strength of our team all year has been our bullpen, so we’re going to lean on that,” said Shane Bieber, the former Cy Young Award winner who required Tommy John surgery after two starts this season. “I think you see most of these teams doing that because it happens quickly and runs are precious. Starters can definitely go deeper in games, but when the stakes are that high, man, the line is a little shorter.

It’s a credit to the Guardians that they’ve gotten this far without their best starter. Boyd was a smart addition — a veteran with a fresh arm after his own Tommy John rehab — but they simply don’t trust any of their starters to pitch very long.

It’s a formula that worked in the regular season and carried Cleveland past an even more bullpen-heavy team, the Detroit Tigers, in the division series. But now, with the top of the mountain in sight, the engine sputters.

“I mean, everyone’s tired,” Vogt said. “I think we used them a lot. We had to do that. It is who we are.”

With this identity, the Guardians have one more chance to win. It’s a tough way to live, and they’re not alone.

(Photo of starter Gavin Williams leaving the game: Jason Miller/Getty Images)