STANDING TALL
SABATHIA LEADS SLOPPY YANKS OVER RANGERS
CC Sabathia watched Miguel Andujar commit a throwing error to open the second inning. Four frames later, the rookie third baseman backed up on a grounder that turned into a twobase error.
Standing on the mound for each miscue, the veteran lefty knew it was up to him to make sure those errors committed by a work-in-progress youngster didn’t turn into runs.
“That’s with anybody,’’ Sabathia said when asked if it was his responsibility to make sure Andujar’s errors didn’t hurt. “We are all out there trying to make plays and pick the team up, of course.”
Sabathia didn’t allow a run in the second or sixth, which contributed heavily to the Yankees beating the Rangers 7-2 on Sunday in front of a Yankee Stadium crowd of 41,304.
The Yankees take a break from AL teams Monday night, when ththey host the awful MMets in a makeup ggame that will feature JaJacob deGrom and Luis SSeverino.
In six innings, his llongestt outingti since July 4, Sabathia didn’t allow a run, gave up one hit — an infield single in the second to Joey Gallo — and struck out seven. Sabathia, who is 7-4, is 1-0 with a 0.77 ERA in his past two starts.
“He is a guy that we count on, and he is a really good pitcher, still, in this league,’’ Aaron Boone said of the 38-year-old, who worked around consecutive oneout walks in the third. “These games are important. We need our starters to go out there and give us quality outings, and that is two in a row for CC.”
Sabathia had help making sure Andujar, who leads the Yankees with 12 errors, didn’t kill the afternoon. Giancarlo Stanton homered in the first off lefty Martin Perez. It was Stanton’s 30th of the season, and he has homered in five of the past six games. Didi Gregorius turned in several outstand- ing defensive plays with the best coming in the fifth when he dove toward the shortstop hole to glove Delino DeShields’ grounder and get the out at f irst. Gregorius also added his 21st homer, a two-run blow in the five-run fifth that hiked the Yankees’ lead to 6-0. Aaron Hicks drove in two runs, and Jonathan Holder bailed out Sonny Gray in the eighth inning. “That was one of the better plays I have seen at shortstop,” Sabathia said of Gregorius stealing a hit from DeShields. The Yankees’ sixth win in seven games hiked their record to 74-43 but didn’t cut into the AL East-leading Red Sox lead, which remained at 9 ½ after they beat the Blue Jays.
Sabathia no longer sends speed guns into the mid-90s, but he hasn’t forgotten that pitching is about disrupting the hitter’s timing more than anything.
So with a cut fastball working, Sabathia stayed with it.
“It’s been a huge part because especially guys with two strikes are looking for my backdoor slider,” Sabathia said. “To be able to elevate the cutter and change the eye level helped me get outs.”
With Sabathia done after 97 pitches, Boone turned a 7-0 lead over to Gray, who delivered three scoreless extra innings out of the pen in Chicago this past week in his first big-league relief appearance since 2013. Sunday didn’t go quite as well.
After giving up two runs in the seventh, Gray was removed by Boone to boos following a leadoff double by Elvis Andrus and a single by Adrian Beltre in the eighth.
Jonathan Holder took over for Gray and didn’t allow the two inherited runners to score. Holder then worked a scoreless ninth.
When the Yankees left Fenway Park on Aug. 5, they had lost four straight to the Red Sox and were 9 ½ games back of the AL East leaders. Since then, the Yankees have won six of seven but remain 9 ½ out.
Logic dictates the Yankees aren’t going to catch the Red Sox and will snag one of the two AL wild-card spots. By then, Sabathia, Stanton and Gregorius shouldn’t be called on to pick up a neophyte third baseman, and Holder shouldn’t be asked to clean up a mess created by Gray.