MLB

Travis, CC lead Yankees over Blue Jays

CC Sabathia hasn’t been the same pitcher the Yankees have been accustomed to seeing since he joined them in 2009.

His velocity still is down and many of his pitches aren’t as sharp as he would like them to be.

Still, the one thing that hasn’t changed is his success.

Yesterday, knowing he had only a taxed bullpen behind him, Sabathia shook off some shaky results in the middle innings and made it through eight in a 5-4 victory over the Blue Jays, the Yankees’ third straight.

“We’ve seen him do it so many times,” manager Joe Girardi said after Sabathia improved to 4-2. “The way he competes when he doesn’t have his stuff is probably as impressive as anything. That’s how you become a 20-game winner.”

That, and getting some help from your offense.

For as important as it was for Sabathia to go deep into the game, it wouldn’t have made as much of an impact if Travis Hafner didn’t deliver two significant blows.

After Sabathia fell into a 3-0 hole through four innings, Hafner almost immediately erased it with a three-run shot in the bottom of the inning against J.A. Happ.

Hafner only was in the lineup against a southpaw because Girardi had grown tired of seeing right-handed Ben Francisco flail against lefties and figured he’d give Hafner a shot.

“I thought today was a good day to do it and he made it work,” Girardi said of Hafner, who tripled off lefty reliever Brett Cecil.

And after Sabathia surrendered a homer to Brett Lawrie to start the sixth to give Toronto a 4-3 lead, Hafner came through to put the Yankees ahead with a run-scoring triple in the seventh. That followed Vernon Wells’ RBI single off Esmil Rogers (1-2) that tied the game.

“I just battled to last long enough for these guys to score runs,” Sabathia said. “I was kind of all over the place.”

Even as he pitched two scoreless innings to start, Sabathia knew he was in trouble, but he was pleased with the way he finished- retiring his last nine hitters.

Chris Stewart didn’t think he was that erratic.

“He wasn’t bad,” Stewart said. “He just wasn’t CC-like. But he keeps making pitches when he needs to.”

“Later in the game, I felt better with my fastball command and my change worked a little better,” Sabathia said. “So I feel good going into my next start.”

His manager does, as well, even though Sabathia has surrendered five homers in his last two starts.

“I’m not worried about it,” Girardi said. “I don’t think a couple of starts make a pattern.”

The victory got the Yankees to 14-9 and continued their solid April despite suffering more injuries Friday.

They shook off the loss of Ivan Nova and Francisco Cervelli to the disabled list and gave Toronto more reason to worry.

Thought by many to be the team to beat in the AL East, the Blue Jays have been terrible (9-16) and the Yankees have a chance to complete a four-game sweep of Toronto in The Bronx for the first time in 18 years.

Sabathia also got some assistance from Joba Chamberlain, who pitched around two singles for a scoreless ninth, picking up his first save since 2010.

“I know there’s nobody behind me,” said Chamberlain, who got the chance because Girardi didn’t want to use Mariano Rivera a third straight day and David Robertson has also been used a lot. “That’s fun for me.”