ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — We are talking about a man with a Cy Young Award. Who won Most Valuable Player honors in the 2009 American League Championship Series.
So why did it feel so monumental Tuesday night, at Tropicana Field, when CC Sabathia escaped a first-and-second, two-out, fifth-inning jam by retiring the Rays’ Kevin Kiermaier on a first-pitch comebacker?
Because Sabathia’s nemesis Evan Longoria stood on deck. Because the big lefty registered a terrible spring training. Because the Yankees, after seeing their ace Masahiro Tanaka get clobbered in Sunday’s season opener, really wanted to get their first win of 2017 in the books.
Because, for everything with this pinstriped, tightrope-walking mission, it’s baby steps.
So the Yankees, emboldened by Sabathia’s strong season debut and power from unexpected sources, got on the win board with a 5-0 blanking of Tampa Bay, evening their record at 1-1. They also gained hope that perhaps their 36-year-old former ace can continue the reinvention he initiated last season.
“I was really encouraged by him,” manager Joe Girardi said.
Sabathia delivered five shutout innings, walking two and striking out two and, perhaps most meaningful, recording eight outs on the ground and two more via pop-ups caught by infielders. While his defense helped, with Jacoby Ellsbury, Chase Headley, Ronald Torreyes and Starlin Castro delivering plays of note, Sabathia largely earned his 224th career win by successfully mixing his off-speed stuff with a fastball that averaged an impressive 91 mph, according to Brooks Baseball. Of his 85 pitches, 55 went for strikes.
“That’s the thing I have to be able to do, command the inside part of the plate to throw my changeup and my slider out there,” said Sabathia, who stated that he didn’t shake off Gary Sanchez once in just their second time working together. “We did a good job of that early today.”
About the 85 pitches: Relax, old-schoolers. That will do for where Sabathia stands on his career arc, for where this season stands. Especially because Longoria, who singled and walked in his two plate appearances to extend his career dominance against Sabathia to .410/.511/.821, led off the sixth.
“It’s early,” Sabathia said, accepting the decision, and Girardi added the Rays made him work more in the fourth and fifth, when they put two runners on base in each frame, than in the first three, when the home team totaled one base runner.
Bryan Mitchell took over and retired Longoria on a groundout to Headley at third, starting four innings of bullpen zeroes. Speaking of Headley, he crushed a solo homer to center field and added a run-scoring, shift-beating single to left field, giving him five hits in these first two games — a dramatically better leap out of the gate than last year’s epically bad April. And the Yankees’ first round-tripper of this campaign came from an even less likely suspect:
Torreyes, Didi Gregorius’ injury replacement, who drilled a third-inning Jake Odorizzi offering well over the left-field wall. For a bonus, Yankees fans got to see the (listed) 5-foot-8 Torreyes stand on his tippy-toes to high-five the 6-foot-7 Aaron Judge, who had singled ahead of him.
Plenty of good optics for the Yankees, beginning with Sabathia. He had won considerable goodwill with his 2016 season, his 3.91 ERA in 30 starts (totaling 179 ²/₃ innings) his best performance since 2012. Yet his 4.28 FIP underlined that he might have been a tad lucky, and he allayed no fears when he tallied a 6.75 ERA in four Grapefruit League starts.
Sabathia never fretted. Why? “Health,” he said. “The way I felt. I wasn’t feeling any pain in any pitches. I felt like that was a good sign for me going forward.”
“Some other guys you worry about, but CC, we’ve seen him before,” Girardi said. “We’ve had him a long time.”
That long time might be nearing an end, with Sabathia in his walk year. He has this season to help his employers of nine years and to boost his free-agent market.
“This is a young team, a talented team,” he said, “so it’s up to us to just go out and play well.”
To get things going, the veteran led by example.