TAMPA — God must dig large lefties.
After catching CC Sabathia in a George M. Steinbrenner Field bullpen yesterday, Jorge Posada marveled at Sabathia’s left arm.”He could pitch for 50 more years,” Posada said of the 29-year-old ace. “He has an arm like David Wells.”
Other parts of Wells’ big body broke, but never his arm, across a 21-year career. Outside of a scare last year against the Marlins in Miami that wasn’t serious, Sabathia’s talented wing was problem free.
Yesterday’s 35-pitch effort that only included fastballs and change-ups was nothing more than Sabathia getting a feel for the mound.
“I wanted to make sure my delivery is all right. It felt good,” said Sabathia, who will open the season against the Red Sox in Fenway Park on April 4.
Because Andy Pettitte, A.J. Burnett and Sabathia pitched into November last year and No. 4 starter Javier Vazquez logged 219 1/3 innings (the most since 2003, when he tossed 230 2/3 frames for the Expos), Joe Girardi and pitching coach Dave Eiland are taking it slow with their valuable arms.
Yet, Sabathia refuses to avoid the mound.
“I can’t take too much time off because my arm gets into a funk,” said Sabathia, who has worked 724 innings the past three seasons and added 55 1/3 frames in the past three postseasons. “So I took three weeks off and started to play catch, something easy.”
Sabathia, who went 19-8 with a 3.37 ERA in his first year as the Yankees’ ace, isn’t concerned the heavy workload will impact his arm as he gets older.
“I want to take the ball at every opportunity,” said Sabathia, who with Burnett and Pettitte formed a three-man postseason rotation that carried the Yankees to their 27th World Series title.
A year ago the Yankees’ universe was new to Sabathia, who was in the first season of a seven-year, $161 million deal. Yet, unlike a lot of other high-profile players, Sabathia didn’t have a hard time adjusting to The Bronx.
Not even the gloom and doom that followed a spring outing against the Tigers in Lakeland, in which Sabathia got spanked for five runs and six hits in 1 2/3 innings, affected him.
“I knew it was going to be bad. I expected it,” Sabathia said. “I got a lot of calls with people saying, ‘CC, what’s wrong with you?’ That’s expected. If I go out against Philly and give up another home run to Chase Utley in my first start, it will be a big story.”
Girardi points to Sabathia’s 6-foot-7, 290-pound body as one reason for his durability. Yet his low pitch count also plays a role.
“He is big and strong and, No. 2, he is very efficient,” the manager said. “He throws 12 to 15 [pitches] an inning. He isn’t throwing 20 to 22 pitches every inning. He is not laboring out there, he has quick and crisp innings. It’s similar to what [Greg] Maddux and [Tom] Glavine did. They logged a lot of innings and they could do that because pitch per innings and they didn’t have to work so hard.”