YANK LEFTY IS LIVID!
The Red Sox came to town for the final four games of the season series with a chance to bury the Yankees once and for all in the AL East race.
But slump-busting veteran starter CC Sabathia remained unbeaten this season following a Yankees’ loss, backing them to a much-needed 6-2 victory over Boston on Thursday night at the Stadium.
Sabathia (11-5) hurled six innings of one-run ball to improve to 8-0 this season (with a 1.44 ERA) following a team defeat, and this one couldn’t have been more timely on the heels of three straight losses to Cleveland earlier this week. Another defeat would have dropped the Yanks to a season-worst 6.5 games behind the first-place Red Sox.
Slumping outfielder Aaron Judge went 0-for-2 with two walks after being demoted to sixth in the batting order, but Gary Sanchez and Greg Bird each homered and combined for five RBI for the Yanks. David Robertson (two scoreless innings) and Dellin Betances combined to record the final nine outs, though Betances did walk in a run.
against a pitcher who may be limited physically by a bad knee, as is the case with Sabathia. All the more so since the Sox have generated so little offense against him this season.
Yet it enrages Sabathia that they’ve tried it in his last two starts against them, in Fenway Park a couple of weeks ago and then on this night when former teammate Eduardo Nunez dropped one down on him in that first inning.
As it turned out, Sabathia made the play but rushed his throw, pulling Greg Bird off the bag for an error, and that nearly cost him as he walked the next two hitters. But he bounced back
with a pair of strikeouts, and that’s when he let the Sox know how he felt. “It’s just kind of weak to me,’’ he said. “It shows me what they’ve got over there.” Sabathia was quick to say it gave him extra motivation. “It just gets you fired up,’’ he said. “Obviously you want to win every time you go out there, but it’s more so because of that.” The 37-year-old lefty said it’s not that he thinks the Red Sox are trying to take advantage of his knee problem, for which he was on the disabled list a month ago. And he doesn’t consider it a sign of disrespect. Quite the opposite, in fact. “Scared,’’ he said. “I mean, ‘let’s go, let’s play. Swing the bat.’ ” Sabathia said he doesn’t even think their strategy is about his knee. “I think they just think I’m a bigger guy who can’t field my position,” he said, “so ‘we’re going to try to bunt instead of swinging the bat.’ “I mean, they have a really good lineup. I want to go out and compete against them. I just feel like sometimes they don’t want to.” Sabathia said he has no personal issues with any of the Sox players. He said he talks to Chris Young, another former Yankee, all the time. So what about Nunez? Sabathia finally smiled and said, “Nunee, he apologized to me before his second at-bat.”
After the game, Nunez didn’t deny apologizing to Sabathia but said the bunting was a strategy and said he’d do it again. “I don’t care if he was mad,’’ Nunez said. It all makes for some lively back and forth, but what matters most to the Yankees is that Sabathia used his anger to motivate himself and pitch well, without throwing purpose pitches that might have led to the team’s second brawl in a week.
“Maybe if it was 10 years ago, when I was younger,” he said. “But I can’t afford to do that now.”
In other words, if he still threw 97 mph, somebody probably would have at least been sent sprawling. Sabathia hasn’t been a power pitcher for years, yet he continues to pitch effectively, in part because he found the now-famous brace that takes the pain out of landing on his right knee.
All things considered, in fact, he’s had a heck of a season — now 11-5 with a 3.71 ERA. Perhaps most significant, he is 8-0 with a 1.44 ERA in starts after Yankee losses this season.
“That’s who he is,’’ said Joe Girardi. “That’s what he’s done his whole career.”
As for the bunting, Sabathia said he’s had a thing about that going back to his younger days, apparently because of his size.
“I’ve always been like that my whole life,’’ he said. “(The Red Sox) are just catching it now.”
In truth his reaction seemed a bit over the top. But who in their right mind was going to argue with CC about it? Not the Red Sox, that’s for sure.
I don’t give a f--k about their reaction. I don’t really care what they have to say. I’m out there early every day. If they have something to say, we can meet in center field. CC Sabathia on the Red Sox