MARKING HIS TERRITORY
Leftover questions as deadline nears
T HE YANKEES need answers this month, their last opportunity to restock their roster without considerable restrictions.
Some answers arrived Wednesday night at Yankee Stadium. Jacoby Ellsbury ($ 153 million) and Andrew Miller ($ 36 million), $ 189 million of talent, returned from the disabled list and while neither excelled, they looked healthy in the Yankees’ 54 victory over Oakland that halted their twogame losing streak.
The club’s biggest question, however, remained a question. Though it could have gone worse for them: They could have received the wrong answer.
CC Sabathia, the Yankees’ most expensive and least effective starting pitcher, took the mound on eight days’ rest and looked … OK. He picked up his first win in four starts by lasting 5 ¹ / ₃ innings and giving up two runs on seven hits and two walks while striking out just one.
Given how poorly the big lefty has pitched this year— this one lowered his ERA from 5.59 to 5.47 — everyone involved marked this down as progress.
“I’ll put this in the memory bank and try towork off of that,” said Sabathia, who clarified he had his surgically repaired right knee drained since his previous start.
Said manager Joe Girardi: “I just think his location got better [ throughout the start]. I think his sinker got better as time went on. So I thought itwas important.”
Nevertheless, Girardi’s actions spoke loudest when he lifted Sabathia with one out and Jake Smolinski on first base in the sixth, after the lefty had thrown just 88 pitches, for rookie Bryan Mitchell, who danced with danger before completing the inning to preserve the Yankees’ 32 advantage.
“No disrespect to Joe, but I have things to prove to him,” Sabathia said. “Hopefully we get later in the season, and I pitch later in games, and he’ll keep me out there.”
The hometeam’s bullpen teamed for 2 ² / ₃ innings of shutout ball, with Dellin Betances tossing an outstanding eighth to shrug off his recent struggles, before Miller survived a shaky ninth, surrendering a tworun homer to Marcus Semien, to pick up his first save since June 3.
With Mark Teixeira’s two solo homers and strong defense powering the Yankees, Sabathia benefited early on from the A’s squaring up and hitting some balls right at people.
Nevertheless, five of the first A’s batters picked up hits, and Oakland jumped out toa 20 lead— prompting the Yankees to warm up Mitchell right there — until Sabathia fixed his changeup. He did look considerably better fromthe third through the fifth. The extra rest helped, said Sabathia, who will turn 35 on July 21. “With the young horses here, let the old man get a coupleof days off,” the former ace said.
With Sabathia earning $ 23 million, the Yankees would much rather keep the team leader in the rotation and avoid the headache of a demotion. This outing will quiet such discussion, although as Sabathia himself admitted, he’ll have to keep heading in a positive direction to silence it altogether.
The Yankees’ starting rotation provides a tough nut to crack. For sure, they have inventory, and with that inventory comes many questions. About Sabathia. About Masahiro Tanaka. About Michael Pineda, even, who remains on track to set a career high for innings pitched.
On the other side of the equation, there could be multiple intriguing options on the market such as Cincinnati’s Johnny Cueto, Mami’s Dan Haren and the White Sox’s Jeff Samardzija, all of whom are impending free agents.
“These are the things we’re going to have to talk about, clearly, over the coming weeks,” Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said before the game. “Listen, we’ve got [ Ivan] Nova back from his yearlong Tommy John rehab which, for the time being has pushed a very effective starter to the bullpen. And we have Bryan Mitchell [ in the bullpen] and a [ Luis] Severino sitting in the wings [ at Triple A Scranton/ WilkesBarre].
“There certainly will be discussions about how much better can we do than what we already have, assuming everybody stays healthy. Especially the Pineda Tanaka front end of the rotation guys. How much better can we do at the price it’s going to cost to do it, versus not doing anything in the pitching market?”
Cashman will have about another three weeks of data to contemplate before the July 31 non-waivers trading deadline arrives. By then, one way or another, Sabathia will have to provide an answer to howmuch the Yankees can count on him.