Sabathia Dominates Red Sox In 3-0 Yankees Win

Today's Yankees/Red Sox game was pretty exciting. It shouldn't have been though. The Yankees should have blown the Sox away. Dice-K somehow pitched his way out of trouble in what seemed like every inning. The Yankees had many opportunities to score but they just never got it done. I tweeted during the game that it seemed like the Yankees weren't meant to win today. It just seemed like it was going to be one of those games where nothing went right. But in the end, everything went right. Thanks to one Carsten Charles Sabathia.

CC pitched an absolute great game today. If anyone doubted whether or not he's worth the money that the Yankees are paying him, this should erase those doubts. 7 innings of 1 hit ball against the 2nd best team in all of baseball. That's clutch. He absolutely dominated today. It would have been a shame had he not gotten the win.

Check out these numbers from CC's last 11 starts: 9-0, 79.1 IP, 56 hits, 19 walks, 85 K, 18 ER, 2.04 ERA and a WHIP of 0.95. That's awesome right there. But it gets even better. The big man has made 5 starts in September. His line: 4-0, 35 IP, 20 hits, 13 walks, 36 K, 5 ER, 1.29 ERA and a WHIP of 0.94. He's been AMAZING down the stretch. I have only one question to ask: Where's Johan? I think one of the best moves the Yankees made was not trading for Johan Santana. Johan means no CC. Johan means no Phil Hughes. Johan probably means no AL East title. Johan is good, but he's no CC. I'll take CC over Johan every day of the week, month, year, whatever. CC has to get some love for the Cy Young award. I know Zack Greinke is having a great year but the voters better not sleep on CC. I think if CC finishes with 20 wins, he walks away with it, especially if he dominates in win #20. CC really needs to carry this over into the postseason. Otherwise, this all means nothing.

I absolutely love the back end of the Yankee bullpen. If Phil Hughes gets the ball with the lead the game is pretty much over. Hughes has made 41 relief appearances. The Yankees record in those 41 games is 34-7. 4 of those 7 losses came in Hughes first 6 games as a reliever. I think he became the 8th inning guy on July 3rd. He's pitched in 33 games since 7/3 and the team is 27-3 in those games. Unbelievable. Phil's #s in those 33 games: 36.2 IP, 23 hits, 10 walks, 46 K, 5 ER, 1.23 ERA and a WHIP of 0.90. Those are remarkable numbers. His strikeout rate is amazing. 11.29 Ks per 9 innings. Like I said, if the ball gets to Hughes, game over.

The win today pretty much wraps up the division and home field advantage. The magic # to clinch the AL East is 1, which means they can do no worse than tie, and that would mean they'd be the wild card. Not good enough. Thankfully the Yankees have 7 games left. They only way they lose the division is if they go 0-7 and the Red Sox go 8-0. Good luck with that happening. No chance lance. It's over. The magic # to clinch HFA from the Angels is also 1 and that could drop to zero if the Angels lose tonight. That's also a formality. See the scenario I outlined above. The Yanks aren't going to lose out. It would be ideal for the Yanks to win tomorrow and celebrate both the division and HFA in front of the Red Sox. If you get a chance to rub the Red Sox' noses in it, you take it. I really hope they take care of it tomorrow. A win tomorrow would also mean the two teams would have split the season series with 9 wins a-piece. That in itself is unreal considering the Sox won the first 8. Suck on that Sox fans.

Put plastic over the lockers and put the bubbly on ice. Tomorrow could be a very fun day.

Peace, love and Pinstripes,

J-Boogie