TAMPA — You really don’t know CC Sabathia. You know the numbers, and they are impressive, but you don’t know what he brings to a clubhouse.
You will learn shortly. He is the anti-Carl Pavano.
“Basically, what we aspire to as a front office is to find high-octane competitors. If you combine that with talent, you’ve got a championship caliber player,” GM Brian Cashman said last night as Sabathia shut down the Reds, 4-1, firing 7″ effortless innings at Steinbrenner Field. “We believe CC is that.”
Nick Swisher and Sabathia have the same public relations person. That kind of connection puts players together for all kinds of events off the field.
They got to know each another as friends, and now that they are on the field together, it is an eye-opening experience.
“People really don’t understand how competitive a person he is,” Swisher said. “You don’t really see him until you see him go about his pitching day.”
The first time he pitched in spring training, teammates came away impressed. Not because of what Sabathia did on the mound, because of his attitude.
“He was so happy,” Cody Ransom said. “He said, ‘I forgot how much fun it was to be out there.’ ”
This was the first time out after throwing 253 innings the previous season. When an ace has that kind of attitude, it rubs off on everybody.
“He’s the type of guy who makes the staff compete against each other, which is always a good thing,” manager Joe Girardi said. “I love it. That’s the type of guys you want on your team.”
Sabathia said last night’s outing was the perfect tune-up for the season, noting, “it was good to see the sixth and seventh inning.” The eighth, too. Sabathia said he still needs to work on his slider, but other than that he is raring to go.
A performance like this, Girardi said, is “the reason we went and got him.”Having Sabathia at the top of the rotation gives the Yankees the power starter they lacked. Last season, the big lefty led the majors in innings pitched (253), complete games (10) and shutouts (five). Over the last five seasons he leads the majors in shutouts (nine), is second in complete games (220), fourth in strikeouts (932), fifth in wins (74) and sixth in innings pitched (1,071).
“He’s a perfect teammate,” said Ryan Braun, Sabathia’s teammate last year with the Brewers. “He’s so competitive, that’s the thing that people miss.”All this is why Girardi tabbed Sabathia to pitch Opening Day and the Yankee Stadium opener. It was a no-brainer. Sabathia also has a sense of humor. When asked if he saw the last game at old Yankee Stadium, he said he didn’t, he was probably pitching that night. He then joked he was probably pitching the next night as well.
Actually, Sabathia pitched the night before Yankee Stadium hosted its final game. He didn’t pitch the next night but he might as well have. His Brewers were trying to make the playoffs and Sabathia was in the middle of a stretch run where he started four games in 13 days.
Over the last three years of Carl Pavano’s contract with the Yankees covering 2006-08, American Idle made a total of nine starts, pitching all of 45″ innings. Over that same period Sabathia started 97 games and threw 686″ innings.
Yet this is a pitcher who tells teammates after his first start of the spring, “I forgot how much fun it was to be out there.”
That attitude is what makes Sabathia such a winner.