Sabathia: Stay under control
By Jon Lane
CC Sabathia, officially named the Yankees’ Game 4 starter on Sunday, met the media before Game 3 in Anaheim. The big lefty is going on three days’ rest, which he made a habit of last season. This year though, with the Yankees affording the luxury of providing him extra rest down the stretch, there’s a lot more in the tank.
The plan has worked to perfection. Sabathia is 2-0 with a 1.23 ERA in his two postseason starts. While he admitted that when working on shorter rest you may not have your best fastball, it’s about how you approach the game mentally, and Sabathia has said more than once that the extra rest last month left him energized and recharged.
“You know that going on certain rest that you’re not going to have like your best fastball,” Sabathia said. “So you’ve just got to stay under control and make sure your my delivery is good, and make sure I go out there and throw strikes.”
Someone asked on whether Sabathia feels any different the day after pitching in cold weather. He doesn’t citing all those years pitching in Cleveland.
Other comments from the press briefings:
Joe Girardi on Chad Gaudin’s role going forward:
“He’s more of a long guy for us,” Girardi said. “We had him up in Saturday’s game. [David] Robertson was done, and Gaudin was warmed up, so by having Chad down there it allows us to mix and match more in our bullpen, being able to use maybe a couple guys in an inning and not worry if you go extra innings or a long game.”
You can watch Girardi’s full conference here.
Angels Game 4 starter Scott Kazmir was asked about opposing Sabathia, he summed it up by saying he knows he has to be very good, and facing Alex Rodiguez the way he’s been hitting.
“Anyone that’s seeing the ball as good as he is, it’s tough,” Kazmir said. “You know, you can just tell when hitters are comfortable out there. When they start hitting the ball hard to the opposite field, they’re really seeing the ball good and really feeling comfortable out there. So like I said, you’ve got to attack the strike zone and just get them in defense mode. If you get behind hitters like that, especially how good he’s seeing the ball, he’s going to hurt you.”
YES Blog 
I’m writing this as the game is going on just to highlight one thing. I guess now people see why that was a dumb move by Joe Girardi to carry Guzman on the postseason roster. How sad does it look when you have Cervelli as a pinch hitter. Stealing a base or two can help a team, but it almost always come down to driving a player in by getting a hit. Putting Guzman on the postseason roster left the yankees with absolutely no bench. The player on the bench who has a claim to being a borderline major league hitter is Hairston which says a lot. Like i wrote before, the Hairston/Hinske combo looks a lot better than the Hairston/Guzman combo. I’m dearly hoping Girardi gets a chance to fix this mistake once(if) we get to the Fall Classic.
There will be A LOT of griping about Joe taking Robertson out and putting Ace in.
It was all about pitching styles. Robertson is a straight fastball kind of guy, Ace throws sliders. It just happened that Ace threw two lousy sliders that hung.
That’s baseball.
Do not blame Joe.
BTW – is Mo the greatest AGAIN, to get out of that jam?
Well Girardi has done it again. His removal of Robertson was stupid. You don?t try to fix something if it is not broken. It is not as if the Angels had brought in a lefthander and then the Yankees could bring in a lefty reliever.
Girardi should just stay out of the way and let the Yankees play. When he tries to think he gets in trouble.
And just a comment on Gardner. When will he learn to slide feet first. A player that slides head first does not know how to slide. On his attempt to steal the fielder had both legs in between Gardner and the bag. If you come in feet first a fielder will be a little more aware of the runner. Gardner is fast but not a good base runner. But he is Girardis favorite.
Gardner is fast but does not know how to steel. 0 and 1 perfect time for a pitch out.Girardi was out managed.Hope CC gets it done i dont like AJ out there.
Well, any momentum the Angels got from their win Tuesday night got absolutely SQUASHED out of them with last night’s dominant bashing. With a few exceptions, the Yanks were the hard hitting team we came to love over the summer. CC was everything the Yanks thought they were going to get when they threw all that $$$ at him….and he’s only 29 years old…..and AROD is showing us all that he really IS as great as the hype has been over the years.
But let’s not forget the contribution made by MELKY!! This is key!! If the Yanks are to move forward to the World Series, and be competitive, then they have to have more bats than AROD, Jeter, Posada and Matsui. And I agree with Steve in the first comment here…..They NEED Hinske on that roster!! I understand that the Yanks wanted to be able to run with the Angels, but they don’t need Guzman for that. Hairston is a GREAT sub in the infield OR in the outfield, but to mix and match better, Joe needs to add Hinske.
To me, CC IS the number 1 reason the Yanks are where they are. If AJ can pitch a decent game on Thursday, and the Yanks can keep working the pitch counts on the Angels starters like they have, then there could be a celebration in Anaheim on Thursday night. AJ just needs to avoid the ONE BAD INNING bug that seems to bite him a lot. I think it’s more in his mechanics than anything, and if he can keep that right, he has FILTHY stuff….just FILTHY.
I’m glad the heat is off of Joe for the bonehead move the other night when he took Robertson out of the game. Sometimes the book doesn’t tell you everything, and Robertson was dialed in. No reason to bring in Aceves. None…..book or no book. Aceves has been great all year…I know. But why fix something that ain’t broke?
And while I’m here….maybe Joe should consider adding Bruney and leaving Chamberlain off the WS roster. Joba has a LOT of work to do to get back to what he was, and Bruney was lights out at the end of the season. ….Just a thought.