HOUSTON — CC Sabathia insists he’s still an ace. General manager Brian Cashman remains unconvinced.
Tuesday night will be Sabathia’s first chance to prove he’s right after a rough season in 2013.
“I feel unbelievable,” Sabathia said. “My arm feels great, my knee feels fantastic. I have no complaints. I feel really strong and ready to start the season. Last year, I kind of had some doubts going into the year and not feeling strong [with] my elbow. This year, I don’t feel anything to worry about.”
But that doesn’t mean he’s automatically going to revert to his old form. He’s confident his changeup will be an effective pitch for him again after he abandoned it for most of last season and the cutter he added is ready to make its debut.
Still, Cashman isn’t ready to anoint him yet.
“We will find out,” the general manager said when asked if he thought Sabathia was still an ace. “An ace is a term you can throw around at eight people. It’s a very small club, so we will see what happens.’’
Sabathia certainly didn’t fit the bill a year ago, coming off elbow surgery as he tried to figure out how to pitch with a leaner frame and had perhaps the worst season of his career. After a decent start, he finished with a 4.78 ERA and a 14-13 record.
Sabathia attributed his early-season success a year ago to “getting lucky.”
“It was a frustrating and bad year for me personally,” Sabathia said. “But as far as grinding games out, giving everything I got, I had to put it on the line. That was all I had.”
Now, with renewed confidence that he is healthy, Sabathia believes the worst is behind him. And his performance this spring convinced him of that.
“I felt that this spring, just being myself,” Sabathia said. “It was important for me to have just one good game, a couple of clean innings. It could have been the first start, it could have been five days ago. It didn’t matter. I was able to put together a few in a row.”
So now he’ll face the Astros with the diminished velocity that even he doesn’t suspect will return, but determined to come up with a way to show that 2013 was an aberration and not a sign that his career is trending the wrong way.
“I feel like I’m back to being a bulldog,” Sabathia said. “That’s just confidence. I felt like I was back to being myself.”
Joe Girardi liked what he saw this spring, when Sabathia got outs with his change and his fastball consistently.
“I do think he looked comfortable all spring,” the manager said. “I think CC takes a big load upon his shoulder every year. He’s used to doing that.”