Aaron Boone keeps in a struggling CC Sabathia, and thankfully it ends in a win
CC Sabathia #52 of the Yankees stands on the mound during the fifth inning against the Seattle Mariners at Yankee Stadium on Monday, May 6, 2019. Credit: Jim McIsaac
Look, even hard-working, well-meaning people make mistakes.
A to-go coffee cup was visible on a table in the netherworld of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” on Sunday. Having never seen the show, I can only presume it is set in a mythical land that has a Starbucks on every blood-soaked corner. Maybe I’m wrong.
Back in our realm, John Sterling didn’t have a signature call ready for Thairo Estrada’s first home run on Monday night. Twitter users suggested, “Thairo hits one to Cairo!” – which makes sense since Sterling’s Luke Voit call has the baseball going to Detroit.
Aaron Boone nearly had such a moment in the fifth inning of Monday’s 7-3 Yankees victory over the Mariners at Yankee Stadium.
He left a fading CC Sabathia in the game past where Boone would have taken out any other starter on the staff. The fifth is when a starter qualifies for a win, and Sabathia was three shy of 250 – a nice, round number that when added to his more than 3,000 strikeouts could punch the beloved lefthander’s ticket to the Hall of Fame.
In 2019, teams don’t care about wins for individual pitchers. If it had gone sour, Boone would have faced the second-guessers, perhaps even from his own front office.
Sabathia had been staked to a 7-0 lead on the strength of home runs from Voit, Estrada and Brett Gardner and a bunch of other hard hits against (former King) Felix Hernandez.
Sabathia was brilliant early, retiring the first eight batters (four by strikeout) and taking a shutout into the fourth. But a walk and a two-run home run by Domingo Santana made it 7-2. A Dee Gordon home run with one out in the fifth made it 7-3.
Sabathia struck out Mitch Haniger for the second out. One more, and Sabathia would be in line for the victory.
But Tim Beckham and Edwin Encarnacion singled. Jonathan Holder was up in the bullpen. Sabathia’s pitch count was climbing with the righthanded Santana coming to the plate. Another home run would make it 7-6 and put not only Sabathia’s victory, but the Yankees’ victory, in jeopardy.
Wily veteran that he is, Sabathia threw four straight balls to Santana to load the bases with lefthanded-swinging Jay Bruce due next as the potential tying run on a night when the ball was flying out of the ballpark.
Bruce is off to one of the strangest starts in memory. He came into the game batting .183, but had 11 home runs, including a grand slam on Sunday.
Boone said he considered removing Sabathia for the righthanded hitters. He also said “no, not really” when asked if he was pushing to secure the win for Sabathia.
“I felt like once we let him go through Santana there, I felt like Bruce – we liked the matchup enough,” Boone said. “And I felt like he was still throwing the ball OK. The only thing, obviously, was his pitch count was getting up, especially in that inning, and that was a concern, and the debate that we were kind of having.”
Sabathia dialed it up as best he can in his final season. The first pitch was a 90-mile per hour fastball for a strike – one of only three pitches Sabathia hit 90 with on the night, and his first since the third inning.
The next pitch – Sabathia’s 99th -- was 89 mph and got inside Bruce’s kitchen for a weak grounder to first. The inning was over, the Yankees’ bullpen threw four shutout innings, and Sabathia got win No. 248.
Sabathia, who wanted to get to 3,000 strikeouts, said his win total means “nothing” to him. It sure seemed to mean something to someone else, though, which is a sign of how much Sabathia means to the Yankees. Nothing wrong with that -- since it worked out this time.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
