CC Sabathia was not able to finish what he started Wednesday — twice.
In the second inning of the Yankees’ 4-1 loss to the White Sox, Sabathia found himself in a two-out, two-on mess, though with an 0-2 count on left fielder Ryan LaMarre. But Sabathia lost the battle and LaMarre cracked a two-run double. In the fourth, with two out and one on, LaMarre didn’t wait for two strikes. He doubled on a 1-0 cutter for a 3-0 lead.
“Just didn’t make pitches when I needed to. Got two strikes and couldn’t make a pitch,” said Sabathia (7-5), who suffered his first loss since July 9, a defeat that was followed by five no-decisions and a win before Wednesday.
Even with the Yankees offense banged up and infirm, Sabathia thought his mates would find a way to bail him out in his second start since returning from the 10-day disabled list because of right knee inflammation. But it wasn’t to be and the defeat meant a series loss to the White Sox.
“All I’m trying to do is go out and give the team a chance to win,” Sabathia said. “This is a good team and we always hit, so you’ve just got to give them a chance.”
The three runs yielded by Sabathia were the most he surrendered since the four the Indians managed July 14. In five starts prior to Wednesday, Sabathia, who worked six innings yielding five hits and two walks while striking out five, had been charged with a total of just seven runs.
“I thought he was really sharp in the first inning, one of his better first innings,” manager Aaron Boone said. “I thought he was really crisp, attacked the zone had a quick inning and then that second inning …”
Yeah, that second inning, especially with two strikes on LaMarre, who drove in all four Chicago runs and proved to be all that was needed to undo Sabathia.
“He hit some pitches, didn’t execute,” Sabathia said.
“A couple hitters, maybe with two strikes, you could see their approach was to get something out over the plate and work it the other way,” Boone said. “I thought they did a good job of that. Maybe didn’t get his cutter in on a couple of pitches and then LaMarre, even early in the year [with] Minnesota, unfortunately for us, he’s had a lot of really good at-bats against us and he turned out to be the difference tonight with a couple big swings.”
Two of those swings were against Sabathia, who had perfect 1-2-3 innings in the first, third and sixth and did not allow a homer for a fourth straight start. LaMarre did homer in the seventh, at Chad Green’s expense.