Sabathia ‘frustrated’ after lackluster effort

Finding the negative in the Yankees’ 14-11 extra-inning rally over the Orioles might be nitpicking, but CC Sabathia was that negative. Sabathia followed a brilliant start to the season with by far his worst outing of the year, allowing as many runs Friday as he had in all his previous starts combined, and giving up the longest home run in baseball this year. He was that bad. Perhaps overthrowing in a showdown for first place in the AL East, Sa- bathia got pounded for nine hits and a season-high seven runs, all of them earned, in 5 2/3 innings.

The Yankees came back from a 9-1 hole to win, but even that rally didn’t keep Sabathia from castigating himself for having dug them into a deep hole in the first place.

“[I was] just even more frustrated with myself that I couldn’t keep us in the game,” Sabathia said. “I feel like I had way better stuff than I did a couple nights ago in Pittsburgh. I felt like I was trying to do too much and that’s normally not me. I’m usually pretty good at staying within myself. For some reason wanted to make everything nasty and got myself into trouble.”

“He made mistakes,’’ manager Joe Girardi said. “I thought his stuff was pretty good. I didn’t think he had his good cutter. I thought everything else was pretty good. When he went out first couple innings I’m thinking ‘man, he’s got really good stuff.’ But he just seemed to get in trouble.”

And Sabathia just couldn’t get himself out of that trouble, with Baltimore batters 6-for-11 with two walks with two outs.

He fell behind 2-0 in the third on Manny Machado’s double to center. It became 4-0 in the fourth after he hit Chris Davis on a 1-2 count and served up Welington Castillo’s homer. Then came Machado’s 470-foot solo shot in the fifth, the longest in baseball this season and second-longest ever at the new Yankee Stadium.

Down 5-1 in the sixth, Sabathia got two outs in the sixth before Joey Rickard bunted. The 36year-old pitcher fielded it, but stumbled and fell to his knees to give Rickard a hit. Sabathia left after Adam Jones followed with a single.

“I was fine. I’m awkward. It is what it is. I’m 36 years old and it’s not going to look pretty all the time,’’ Sabathia said.

“I was worried,’’ Girardi admitted. “He said he felt fine. I’ll check with him [Saturday]. He tore quite a big piece of turf up.”