Archive for C.C. Sabathia
At 51-37, with the third best record in baseball, leading the Wild Card and just three games back in the AL East, the Yankees had a fine first half. Yet it was a tumultuous three months, wrought with streaks and injuries and strange trends, causing mass panic at times among Yankees fans. Over the extended All-Star Break, we’ll go over each position to see what went right, what went wrong, and how things look for the second half. First up: starting pitching.
The expectations
The Yankees went into the 2008-2009 off-season focussed on adding a couple of starters. They got their guys in CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett. After protracted negotiations they also brought back Andy Pettitte to anchor the back end of the rotation. Sabathia, Burnett, Wang, Pettitte, and Chamberlain looked as formidable as any rotation in the AL heading into the season. Plus, Phil Hughes waited in the wings as a viable backup plan. Fans could justifiably expect big things from these guys.
The results
The staff wasn’t quite as dominant as we’d hoped, with each starter hitting a rocky path with varying degrees of severity. It led to some ugly results. The Yankees starters have combined for a 4.76 ERA through 88 games, which ranks 12th in the AL, besting only Baltimore and Cleveland. They’ve averaged under six innings per start, which is bad, and lead the AL in walks, which is really bad. It’s safe to say that the rotation has not lived up to expectations so far.
Part of that rests on the shoulders of Chien-Ming Wang, whose first three starts were so historically bad that they skew the numbers of the staff overall. I won’t remove them here, since they did happen. Still, even if we did remove them, the Yanks would still be at or near the top of the league in walks, and still probably wouldn’t be at six innings per start. Wang’s ineffectiveness is no excuse for the whole staff.
There were some bright spots, of course, so we’ll hand out props and boos to each individual starter.
CC Sabathia
Signed as the ace, CC has mostly lived up to expectations. He got off to a rocky start, as seems to be his calling card. He did manage one gem among his April starts, but that was against the pathetic Kansas City Royals. He found his mojo in May, though, coinciding with the return of A-Rod. Since then he’s 7-3 with a 3.43 ERA, throwing 65 percent of his pitches for strikes and holding opposing hitters to a .218 batting average. If he keeps that up through the second half — and over his career this seems to be the case — he’ll continue to be the workhorse ace the Yankees signed him as.
A.J. Burnett
A.J. had his peaks and valleys early on, leading many to continue questioning the signing. Fans were especially vocal after he blew a game against the Red Sox in which the Yanks got out to an early lead against Josh Beckett. A.J. fanned the flames again when he couldn’t get out of the third inning in the repeat trip to Fenway. Since then, Burnett has been the best starter on the staff, going 4-1 with a 1.34 ERA in five starts. This is the Burnett the Yankees signed. Like Sabathia, Burnett has historically had slightly better second half numbers than first half. If he sticks to the trend, the Yanks will be set atop the rotation.
Chien-Ming Wang
It was tough to gauge how effective Chien-Ming Wang would be after suffering a lisfranc injury last June. He seemed fine, but not great, in Spring Training, leaving few worries as the season opened. But then he sputtered in his first start, surrendering seven runs to the Orioles. His next start was so short that the Yankees called on Nick Swisher to pitch an inning when the game was far out of hand. His third start led to the worst drubbing of the year. The Yankees then placed him on the DL, giving him a chance to recover more fully from his injury. Then they rushed him back, and had to put him in the rotation at the expense of Phil Hughes, who had just started to pitch well in that spot.
Wang currently resides on the 15-day DL with a shoulder strain, and the severity of the injury is unclear. He’ll work his way back, but it’s tough for any Yankees fans to have faith in Wanger this year. He’ll have to earn back trust not only from the fans — which is mostly meaningless — but of the front office and coaching staff.
Andy Pettitte
Heading into the season, Pettitte was viewed as the team’s fifth best starter. To this point, he’s mostly pitched like it. He’s had his good starts, and on those days it’s easy to forget his bad starts. But when he’s bad, he takes the team out of the game. Andy likes to blame the new Yankee Stadium for his woes, but his last clunker was on the road. Pettitte is another guy who has historically been better in the second half, but at age 37 one has to wonder whether he can continue that trend this year.
Joba Chamberlain
Yet another Yankee with ups and downs. He got lucky in some of his earlier starts, as he kept the team in the game while not throwing enough innings, not throwing enough strikes, and not throwing his pitches with the conviction we’ve seen in the past. He’s had starts that make us remember how he pitched as a starter last year, ramping up his fastball to that familiar 97 range, but for most of his starts he’s sat much slower on the gun. He’s turned himself into essentially a two-pitch pitcher, throwing either a fastball or a slider 87 percent of the time. He’ll need to work in his curveball and changeup more often to find success. Thankfully, even though he was bombed last time out, his fastball was up in the 94 mph range, which is probably where it should be as a starter.
Phil Hughes
In the second inning of Phil Hughes’s start against Baltimore on May 8, fans hung their heads and groaned, “not this again!” Hughes looked like he did last year, having trouble finding the plate and giving up hit after hit. He struggled through his next few starts before shutting down Texas for eight innings. It looked like he was finding his way, but after a rough subsequent outing against Cleveland the Yankees moved Hughes to the bullpen in favor of Chien-Ming Wang. He’s been lights out since the transition, which is a good sign, but it appears he’ll stay there for now even though the Yankees need another starter. We can only hope Hughes has learned a thing or two out there and that he’ll put it to work when he returns to the rotation next year (though hopefully this year).
Expectations for the second half
With so many pitchers on the staff who have historically pitched better in the second half, it’s tough to not have heightened expectations — especially considering how mediocre they were as a staff in the first half. They might not live up to those expectations, but we’re right to have them. The Yankees rotation has not been as good as advertised, and they’ll absolutely need to be in the second half if the team is to retake the division.
In each game of the past series, the Yankees have had an early lead. In each one they’ve squandered it. They’ve fought back to varying degrees, but in all three cases it was not enough. For most of the series the pitching took the brunt of the blame, but yesterday’s 5-4 loss was a team effort.
Once again, the Angels did it mostly with one big inning. Today it was the fourth, and it came against a bunch of guys CC Sabatia should have sat down handily. It started with a single by Maicer Izturis and a double by Bobby Abreu. Forgivable, especially when he got Napoli to ground out on the second pitch. Abreu was still on third with one out, but it wasn’t a bad situation, especially with Gary Matthews at the dish.
Then Sabathia walked Matthews — Matthews of the .281 OBP. Matthews of the .224 BA. Matthews of the .322 SLG. Walked him. Didn’t even make him take his bat off his shoulders. Then, after going ahead 0-2 on Howie Kendrick — Kendrick of the .228/.274/.342 — he allowed a double over the head of Erik Hinske. The subsequent run-scoring groundout was of little solace.
Yet there was an end in sight — Anaheim’s parade of shitty hitters had not yet ended. Still awaiting a turn at the plate was Robb Quinlan. Quinlan, whom CC had punched out with nifty changeup the inning prior. This time he singled in Kendrick. The baseball gods must have had a hearty chuckle at CC’s expense. They showed their clemency by telling Quinlan to steal on Molina. That didn’t work out too well.
After failing to score in the fifth or sixth, the Yanks put John Lackey on the ropes in the seventh. The Yanks got a run on a double by Melky and a single by Posada, pinch-hitting for Molina. The baseball gods, still feeling bad about their fourth-inning prank, let Brett Gardner reach on an error. Jeter did what Jeter does, and the Yanks were set up: bases loaded, none out.
If this were the Royals, there would be questions about whether they could plate some of those ducks. Seattle fans might fear their team would squander the situation. The Yankees? With Teixeira and Rodriguez up next? Perish the thought. With the score already closed to 4-2, the Yankees looked to take the lead with their two best hitters at the plate.
Again the baseball gods had a little fun. Teixeira struck out. A-Rod bounced to third, which resulted in an unlikely 5-3 double play. To twist the knife just a bit deeper, the Angels scored another run in the seventh. With two outs and two strikes on Chone Figgins, CC gave up a triple. (Could Melky have played that one better? I think so.) Next hitter, Izturis, with two strikes hit a flare over second base.
The Yankees again loaded the bases in the eighth, and were again done in by a double play. This time they scored, but not enough. Clutchy Cabrera hit an RBI single with the bases jacked, but the Yanks couldn’t plate two. Jorge delivered with a sac fly. Then Nick Swisher, pinch-hitting for Brett Gardner, got two questionable strike calls. He hit what looked like a bouncer towards the middle, but it never actually bounced. It landed in Darren Oliver’s glove, and the runners were too far off base. Double play. Rally over.
It wasn’t a pretty series. The Yanks had leads early, and threatened late. Nothing came of it. They’ll head into the All-Star Break losers of three straight — to the same team which has plagued them year after year. It’s disheartening to fans, and it’s surely disheartening to the players. They’ll move on, though. Second half starts up on Thursday.
See? The baseball gods have smiled on us in the end. They have given us four days off after that debacle. Also, Phil Hughes is awesome. Just wanted to get that in there somewhere.
To put into perspective just how well the Yankees offense was going last night: Robinson Cano got a hit with runners in scoring position. If that’s not enough for you, Frankie Cervelli hit a ball about five feet short of a home run, and then later drove one to the same spot for an RBI double. Yes, the Yankees were hitting from top to bottom, and combined with a gem from CC Sabathia it led to a 10-2 Yankees win.
The Yankees lead the league in home runs, but didn’t need any to plate 10 runs against the Twins. They accomplished it by putting men on base — all nine starters picked up at least one hit — moving them into scoring position, and knocking them in — the team went 7 for 17 with runners in scoring position. This led to runs in four different innings, including a monster five-run sixth. And they scored them in every way imaginable — sac fly, single, double, triple — really, every way but a homer (and, of course, the suicide squeeze).
Just because the Yanks didn’t hit any over the Hefty bag doesn’t mean they didn’t try. Alex Rodriguez made the first attempt in the fourth. HitTracker probably would have pegged the ball at 410 feet. With a 408-foot fence that seems plenty, but Carlos Gomez had time to position himself and timed his jump perfectly, robbing A-Rod of a grand slam. They’d pick up a run there with the sac fly, and then another after Scott Baker walked Swisher to plate a run. Hideki gave one a ride with two on and one out in the sixth, but it came up just short, and Gomez was there. Finally, in the seventh Mark Teixeira flirted with one, but it didn’t have enough height and Gomez was able to snag it on the warning track. Dude had a busy night.
Beyond hitting with runners in scoring position, another key for the Yankees’ offense last night was working the starter. Clearly, Scott Baker wasn’t on top of his game. The Yanks took advantage, forcing him to throw 86 pitches in 3+ innings. He finally came undone completely in the fourth, walking Derek Jeter and Johnny Damon on eight straight pitches. With the bases loaded, none out, and his team down only two runs, Ron Gardenhire had no choice but to replace Baker. As we all know too well, his replacement, Brian Duensing, almost let ‘em all score.
On the other side of the ball, CC was CC. While the offense rolled he kept up his end of the bargain, allowing just three hits in seven innings. Two of those were infield singles. Unfortunately the other was a solo homer. In the end it didn’t matter, though. Cuddyer’s shot was but a blip on the radar of the game. Solo homers will happen. What shouldn’t happen is walking Nick Punto on four pitches. That was infuriating for sure. Again, in the end it mattered nil.
There are few greater feelings as a baseball fan, and particularly as a baseball writer, than having little to say about a win beyond showering praise upon the good guys. CC pitched great. The whole offense hit, with runners in scoring position to boot. Carlos Gomez’s defense might have caused a few moments of anguish, but even those were light. The game was all Yankees.
Tomorrow the red hot A.J. Burnett takes on Glen Perkins, whom the Yanks bombed earlier this year. He hit the DL right afterward, and unfortunately for the Yanks has been good-to-really-good since returning in mid-June. Should be a good one in Minnesota tomorrow.
While Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez have long been the darlings of Manhattan, a sizable number of Yankees live in New Jersey. Northern Jersey, in particular, is a short jaunt away from Yankee Stadium, and players find bigger homes in the suburbs than in the city.
To that end, two recent stories about the Yankees and their lifestyles caught my eye. We can learn a lot from them, and perhaps, we can learn nothing from them as well. First up is a Jack Curry Bats post on CC Sabathia’s settling in.
According to The Times scribe and New Jersey resident, Sabathia was chatting him up for info on New Jersey high schools, and Curry takes that as a sign that CC may stick around the Bronx beyond the three-year opt-out currently written into his contract. Ponders Curry:
As I was talking to Sabathia a few days ago about why he decided to live in Bergen County, N.J., he asked some questions that indicated he plans to be with the Yankees for the long haul. Carsten Charles III, C.C.’s son, turns 6 in September, but C.C. quizzed me about which county high schools have the best athletic programs. Little C.C. is only in kindergarten, but his father was already thinking about possible high schools.
If Sabathia was planning to bolt the Yankees in three seasons, would he even be aware of Don Bosco Prep in Ramsey, N.J.? Probably not, but Sabathia cited the school’s sports pedigree. Sabathia had done some homework, too, because Don Bosco’s baseball team was undefeated last year. Sabathia will earn $23 million a season from 2012 to 2015 if he does not opt out, which is another reason for him to become an expert on the New Jersey school system.
Curry acknowledges that this discussion could mean nothing, and I’m inclined to avoid reading much into it. Sabathia, after all, isn’t going to be playing now with an eye toward escaping from New York in three years. He is the type of player who will pour his heart and soul into pitching now and doing the best he can do now.
A lot can change over the course of three years. The economy, the baseball landscape, the needs of other teams and pitcher’s physical health are all factors that will come into play in 2011 when the opt-out comes due. For now, though, I’m sure we’ll scan CC’s every word for a sign of his intentions, but until he waives that clause, everything remains on the table.
In other Yankee residential news, the Daily News reports that Phil Coke is renting in Edgewater. Coke took out a six-month lease on an apartment at The Peninsula. While CC’s musings mean little, Coke seems to be confident that he will be sticking around the Bronx these days. Rumor has it that Kevin Cash and Brett Tomko are eying the Peninsula as well. If I were those two, I wouldn’t sign anything longer than a one-month sublet right now.
When the Yankees and CC conducted their winter dance in December, rumors were flying left and right. Joe and Mike covered the Winter Meetings in Vegas for RAB, and I was home studying for finals. To relive the madness, check out the archives here and here.
When Sabathia finally signed his eight-year, $160-million deal with the Yanks, it was unclear who else was in on the bidding. We knew that the Angels and Giants had expressed some interest, but the only other rumored offer was one for six years and $110-$120 million from the Brewers.
As the early days in December wore on, a few stories emerged. Supposedly, the Giants were interested but never made an offer. The Angels were also rumored to be in on the negotiations, but the team shot those stories down. In fact, the Yankees were rumored to be confident that neither the Angels nor Giants would approach $140 million. They wanted to blow away Sabathia, and more than a few fans thought they were overpaying and outbidding themselves for the big man’s services.
Late on Saturday though Jon Heyman added a unique twist to the story, nearly six months later. He reported via Twitter: “very late scoop — turns out the angels made a $140-million offer to CC. so yanks were wise to go from 140 to 161 mil.”
That’s quite the rub. A lot of Yankee analysts and fans pushed the line that Sabathia didn’t want to play in New York, that his heart lay on the West Coast and that he would return as soon as he could. The presence of an Angels’ offer that was fairly competitive with the Yankee offer would seemingly dispel that notion. He could have turned down that extra money for the chance to pitch in Southern California.
In the end, we now know why the Yankees went so high with their final bid: They had a competitor with the financial resources to give them a run for their money. They wanted their prize, and they went for it. The Yankees probably didn’t know what the Angels’ top offer was, but they knew they had to stay one step ahead.
So when Sabathia takes the mound in a few hours, Yankee fans should be ever grateful that CC is in the Bronx and not in Anaheim. While I always assumed Sabathia would take the Yanks’ money, perhaps it wasn’t as sure a bet as I thought it to be.
Before Joe Girardi officially filled out his lineup card, there was uncertainty as to whether Derek Jeter would play in last night’s series finale against the Blue Jays. The Captain has been suffering what he calls a sore oblique, never an easy injury for a baseball player. It requires rest to heal. Unfortunately, rest does not fit Derek Jeter’s M.O. He returned to the lineup, though, and came through for the Yanks on more than one occasion.
His first act came in the bottom of the sixth. With Alex Rios on first and two men out, Jose Bautista worked a 2-2 count on CC Sabathia. The hefty lefty had unleashed a barrage of fastballs in the at bat, two hitting 94, one 96, and the latest one 97. On the fifth pitch he pulled the string, dropped to 85 mph. Bautista pulled it toward the hole, but there would be no Pasta Diving on this evening. Jeter laid out and snared the grounder, flipping to Cano to finish the inning.
Then, with the Yanks down 2-1 in the top of the seventh, Jeter was presented with one of those RISP situations in which the Yanks have generally failed this season. Brett Gardner had worked a four-pitch walk off Brian Tallet, his fifth of the night. Girardi called for a hit and run on a 2-1 count, and it couldn’t have gone any better. Frankie grounded one to short, which Marco Scutaro almost certainly would have turned into a double play if he weren’t out of position. He was, the ball squeaked through, and to the plate strolled Derek Jeter with two on and none out.
After taking a strike out the outside edge from new pitcher Jason Frasor, The Captain did what he does best. On a 94 mph fastball on the inside edge, Jeter did his inside-oot (as the Blue Jays broadcasters said) thing, lofting a ball over John McDonald’s head and into shallow right for a game-tying single. It was Jeterian in every sense of the term. Unfortunately, the 2-3-4 hitters couldn’t plate the RISP. The Yanks would have to save the comeback for another inning.
Leave it to Godzilla. Exactly one week after he hit a solo home run to tie the game against the Rays, he did the exact same thing. Except this time it put the Yanks on top. On a 2-2 count, Matsui took a Jesse Carlson slider, the first he’d thrown in the at bat, over the right-center field wall, giving the Yankees a 3-2 lead. It was Matsui’s first hit since the series opener in Baltimore last Friday, and it couldn’t have come at a better time.
CC Sabathia wasn’t quite as good as his last start, but eight innings, two runs is the mark of an ace, even if he didn’t get there in the most efficient fashion. Only one of his four walks came back to haunt him, but for a while that run loomed large, as it gave the Jays a 2-1 advantage. That inning, the bottom of the fifth, could have been a lot worse had Brett Gardner and Frankie Cervelli not hooked up to get Rod Barajas trying to score on a John McDonald single. We’ve seen Gardner try to uncork a throw or two this year, usually with disastrous results. On this one he took his time, throwing a strike in time to get Barajas and keep the Jays from extending the lead.
Sabathia took care of the rest, getting Marco Scutaro to ground out on the first pitch, ending the threat. True to form, CC powered through three more frames, laying his own bridge to Mo. Like Mo of old, he came in and mowed down the Jays, throwing six of his 11 pitches for strikes and retiring the Jays in order.
While the Yanks’ inability to capitalize on Tallet’s five walks was a bit frustrating, it’s tough to complain about this win. It was a close game wherein the Yankees scored a run in three separate innings. Whereas last week we talked about how the Yankees were finding ways to lose, today they found another way to win: by manufacturing a run or two and relying on some timely hitting. The win brought the Yanks back to .500, a mark they hopefully won’t see the rest of the season (though this isn’t the first time I’ve typed that).
The Yanks head back home tomorrow night for a four-game set against the Twinkies. It’s the disappointing Phil Hughes vs. the disappointing Francisco Liriano. I’m betting one of them won’t disappoint.
Last night, CC Sabathia showed the Yankees and their fans exactly what he was capable of. After a month of starts that were nothing more than adequete, Sabathia shutout the Orioles in impressive fashion, retiring twenty-three of twenty-four at one point. He recorded the final three outs in the ninth on strikeouts, then followed it up with a roar that announced to everyone that the real CC Sabathia had finally arrived.
But what made Sabathia so much more effective last night than his Opening Day assignment? Since both starts were in Baltimore, we can take a look at Sabathia’s stuff through Pitch f/x without having to worry about slight differences in the PFX cameras. Let’s start off with Sabathia’s pitch selection (remember to click on any graph in this post for a larger view):
The two outings are similar, except that Sabathia broke out the changeup more often last night. Back in April he was basically a two pitch pitcher, throwing either his fastball or slider 87% of the time. That dropped to 80.3% last night. Half of Sabathia’s eight strikesouts came on changeups, evidence that the pitch was keeping O’s hitters off balance.
After the jump, we’ll take a quick look at Sabathia’s individual pitches.
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Perhaps the most telling point of today’s game was when I glanced up at the big scoreboard in center in the top of the sixth and saw that the Yankees had just one hit. Against a guy making just his sixth career appearance at age 30. The team led thanks to a Hideki Matsui single in the first, but other than that it was typical Yankees: making a replacement level pitcher look like a Cy Young winner. Unfortunately for them, the pitching wouldn’t hold up all game.
CC Sabathia again didn’t look like the ace the Yakees signed over the off-season. He held the Angels scoreless through five, but his pitch count had built up by the sixth. A leadoff single by Howie Kendrick kicked off a series of events which would conclude with Torii Hunter scoring on a Kendry Morales ground out. It wasn’t all bad at that point, with the game tied at one. Matt Palmer was still on the mound, and it’s not like he’s actually good. The Yanks were bound to break through, right?
It looked like they would in the bottom of the sixth, as Derek Jeter led off with a ground rule double to center. Johnny Damon got him to third, but Mark Teixeira popped one straight up, as he is wont to do this season. Hideki couldn’t get the hit the Yanks needed, and they sent out CC Sabathia for the seventh. He had thrown 99 pitches to this point. For a guy like Sabathia, that seems like the smart move. It did not turn out that way.
After two straight singles and a sacrifice, the Angels had second and third with one out. Thankfully, Gary Matthews was at bat. He promptly struck out swinging, putting CC in a position to finish out the frame with the game still tied. On a 1-1 count Howie Kendrick hit one up the middle, and it looked like two runs would score. Robinson Cano ranged, though, and picked it, saving one run. That would prove for naught, as Torii Hunter doubled in the next at bat and plated the two runners. That would be CC’s day, though Jon Albaladejo allowed a single which scored the inherited runner. His final line: 6.2 IP, 8 H, 5 R, 4 ER, 1 BB, 5 K, and a big L.
Perhaps if the bullpen had held the Angels in the final two frames the Yanks cold have made a game of it. Despite hordes of fans departing before the ninth the Yanks mustered a mini rally, plating three runs before Johnny Damon struck out in a pitch in the dirt. Once Matthews dropped a Derek Jeter fly ball it started to feel like April 19, 2007 — hell, or even last night — but it didn’t last long.
Still, if the Yankees can come back and win tomorrow’s game — where the O’Neill Theory will be put to another test — they’ll have taken three of four from the Angels, which is what everyone was hoping for coming in. If they can follow that up with three of four from Boston and Tampa, well, then they’ll be rolling. The starting pitching will have to hit a groove at some point, but I have full faith in that. But for now we can just hope that Hughes can build off his last start.
Personal note: Sadly, this was my first trip to the new Stadium. Got to take a lap around the whole place. The view from the bleachers was excellent. The higher vantage point makes it better than at the old Stadium, despite being pushed a bit further back. I also got a chance to meet up with Rebecca, who is as cool in real life as she is in our comments on her blog.
Baseball is a tricky game sometimes. Take last night for instance. Was the Yankees offense horrible, or did Justin Verlander bring his A game? I thought it was mostly the latter, with a smattering of the former. In any case, he mowed down the Yanks with precision, tossing 79 of his 110 pitches for strikes. He lasted only two batters into the eighth, which seems strange for a guy who had pitched a shutout to that point, but striking out nine guys tends to work up the pitch count.
Yet the offense still had its faults. The Yanks put the leadoff runner on in four of the nine frames, and managed to score only in the ninth. The worst of the failings was in the fourth, when Teixeira and Matsui hit back to back singles. After a Cano fly out, Verlander struck out Nick Swisher and Melky Cabrera, thus ending the threat. It happened again in the eighth, with back to back singles by Ramiro Pena and Derek Jeter which chased Verlander from the game. On came Bobby Seay, he of the 1.491 WHIP last year, who took out Johnny Damon, Mark Teixeira, and Hideki Matsui to preserve the shutout.
On the bright side, the Yankees saw a far more efficient version of CC Sabathia last night. Four runs over 8 innings doesn’t look too pretty in the box score, but for anyone watching the game it wasn’t bad at all. The run in the first was an unfortunate one, but easily forgivable. Placido Polanco hit a double on a pitch at his shins, and Cabrera hit a sharp liner that I thought that Jeter would have had for sure. Still, it was just one run. The Yanks had time to recover and they didn’t capitalize. Meanwhile, CC continued to cruise.
His only other blemish came in the sixth, which started with a Curtis Granderson bunt single — one which CC made every conceivable effort to field and make a play on. Polanco’s subsequent double wasn’t exactly a torched ball; it kind of fell in between Melky and Damon and rolled slowly for a bit. It bought enough time for Granderson to score from first. And then came the Mags homer which, judging by his expression after hitting it, even he didn’t think was going out. Oh well. It happens.
It took CC just 99 pitches to finish off eight frames, giving the bullpen a much-needed day off. Moreover, he threw 70 of those pitches for strikes, a far better mark than he’d seen even in his other good outing against the Royals. The six hits, seven strikeouts, and especially the zero walks were also encouraging. It seems CC was done in by the home run. Otherwise it was a solid outing, and a good sign that CC is over his early-season shakes.
Finally, let us take another minute to appreciate Robinson Cano. Dude has been on fire to start the season. He’s quickly put 2008 behind him, which is all you can hope for.
They’ll do it again tomorrow, same time, with Phil Hughes making his 2009 debut against Edwin Jackson. The Yanks could really, really, really…really use a win.
Five days ago, some unreasonable Yankee fans were ready to jump off of the Macombs Dam Bridge. CC Sabathia, earning $23 million a year, had just thrown a clunker against the Orioles, and doubts about his ability to pitch for the Yanks were infesting the minds of those irrational Yankee fans.
Tonight, Sabathia answered those critics and more. He threw 7.2 strong innings, scattering just six hits. While he hit two batters, he walked no one and struck out six. His 2009 ERA dropped from 12.46 to 4.50, and he looked every bit the ace as the Yanks downed the Royals 6-1.
For the evening, Sabathia was just dominant. He averaged 94 miles per hour with his fastball and nearly hit 97, according to Gameday. He mixed in a bunch of change ups and some excellent sliders to keep the Royals’ hitters off balance all night. Exhale, Yankee fans. CC Sabathia has arrived. His next start, of course, will be heavily scrutinized as it will be the first regular season game at the new Yankee Stadium, but with tonight’s outing, he earned the honors, heating pad and all.
Offensively, the night — and season — belonged to Nick Swisher. We love Nick around here. We advocated for him to earn the start job over Xavier Nady during Spring Training, and while Joe Girardi wouldn’t grant him that honor, he’s done nothing but hit his way into the lineup since Opening Day.
Tonight, Swisher went 2 for 3 with 3 RBI and 2 walks. He launched a triple early on and homered in the fifth to plate the final two Yankee runs of the night. On the young season, Swisher is 7 for 13 with a team-leading two home runs and nine RBI. Six of his seven hits have been for extra bases, and Girardi will keep finding a way to get Swisher those ABs. He’s more than earned it, and the Yanks are undefeated with Swisher in the lineup.
For the Yanks, that was about it. Jorge Posada drove in two more runs. Xavier Nady, feeling the heat from Swisher, knocked out two hits, and the Yanks played a crisp, clean game against a team they should beat. With Gil Meche on top for Sunday, the Yanks have won the series, and all is right with in Yankee Universe.
Mark Teixeira Injury Update
Word out of the Yankee clubhouse this evening is that Mark Teixeira is suffering from tendinitis in his right wrist. He will play on Sunday as the Yanks face Meche, a righthander. Hopefully, this injury will not linger, and he’ll be in to face lefties soon enough. The Star-Ledger had a little more about the injury. It doesn’t sound too serious.
