Cleveland's fortunes rest on C.C. in Game 5
CLEVELAND -- Not to place too big an emphasis on C.C. Sabathia's Game 5 start for Cleveland on Thursday night, but the big left-hander's performance may well foretell the Indians' fortunes for the rest of the fall.
After a sensational regular season in which he finished 19-7 with a 3.21 ERA -- if not for skimpy run support, he could have won 23 or 24 games -- Sabathia has hit a wall so far in the postseason.
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| C.C. Sabathia: 'I don't feel like I've thrown a lot of innings. My arm feels good.' (AP) |
Most unnerving has been his shoddy location: Sabathia, who might win his first Cy Young award, has walked 11 batters and hit one in 9 1/3 postseason innings.
This from a man who during the regular season compiled the second-best strikeouts-to-walks ratio -- 5.65 strikeouts for each walk -- of any lefty in American League history. Randy Johnson, then with Arizona, ranks first for a single season at 6.59:1.
"I was disappointed in the first game in Boston that I wasn't able to keep us in the game," Sabathia said Wednesday before the Indians ran through a light off-day workout. "That's something that I've been able to do all year. I didn't even give us a chance the other day, and that's something that I was definitely disappointed about."
Pitching coach Carl Willis thinks Sabathia will bounce back strong partly because of who he is and partly because everybody on the Indians' staff should have benefited from watching the way Jake Westbrook and Paul Byrd attacked the Red Sox in Games 3 and 4.
"He won 19 games this year, he's pitched equally as well home and away," Willis said. "The fans here have been unbelievable. I think all of our guys, watching how the bullpen attacked Boston, watching how Jake and Byrdie attacked them ... I think he's going to be comfortable and go right at those guys."
Sabathia was 11-4 with a 3.13 ERA in Jacobs Field this season; 8-3 with a 3.32 ERA on the road.
There is some belief, though, that the big guy may be running out of fuel. Including the postseason, he's logged 250 1/3 innings so far. In his entire career, he's worked more than 197 innings in a season only once, when he pitched 210 in 2002.
"I don't feel any different in my arm," Sabathia said. "I feel fine. I don't feel like I've thrown a lot of innings. I feel fresh. My arm feels good. I really can't point to that and say that's the reason why I haven't been good these past two games."
Cleveland first baseman Ryan Garko also makes a compelling case that Sabathia's fuel gauge isn't quite yet on E.
"His velocity has been up in the playoffs," Garko said. "I think it's about him throwing too hard, about him pitching up in the zone. I don't think it's fatigue."
