Sabathia's splendid postseason proving Yankees made wise investment

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- He signed with the Yankees last winter for a record $161 million, his favorite character on Entourage is Turtle and, once upon a time, he received a scholarship offer to play football at Southern Cal.

There. Some true facts about the next pitcher on deck to go down in pinstriped lore. Allie Reynolds, Don Larsen, Whitey Ford, Catfish Hunter, David Cone and the rest, make way. Your historical entourage is about to grow.

CC Sabathia is big. He is football-player big. He is October big. And most notably, what the Yankees are learning at speed-reading pace this autumn is that he is New York big.

"He chose the right path, didn't he?" Yankees pitching coach Dave Eiland said, smiling, of the decisions that led Sabathia to the basepaths instead of the hash marks.

Yeah, and John Wayne leaving the USC football team to give acting a try a few decades ago wasn't bad, either. Let's just say that, so far, this free-agent signing is working out a bit better in the Bronx than Carl Pavano.

The Yankees shelled the Angels 10-1 in a Game 4 massacre, seizing a commanding 3-1 lead in this AL Championship Series and setting up the possibility of clinching their first World Series berth since 2003 here on Thursday.

They'd clinch Wednesday, if they could. But the ALCS goes dark -- another of these ridiculous built-in off-days to string out the postseason and goose the television ratings -- and, well, what's a Yankee to do?

"I don't know, go to the movies," shortstop Derek Jeter suggested. "What can you do, really? You'd like to play, but what can you do?"

Whatever the cinematic choice, there is no way Jeter and his mates will find a film packing the reviews of Sabathia's Game 4 classic.

So over-the-top dominant was Sabathia that there came a point that the Angels no doubt would have preferred watching Internet videos of Mariano Rivera spitting on baseballs instead of facing Sabathia throwing them.

Eight innings, five hits, one run, five whiffs, 13 of the first 15 Angels' batters retired. Working on three days' rest, he cranked his fastball up to 96 mph in the eighth inning and fanned three of his last six batters faced.

"Tremendous job," Yankees outfielder Nick Swisher said.

"Spectacular," manager Joe Girardi said.

"He's a horse," third baseman Alex Rodriguez noted. "He's a monster. We're so glad to have him on our team."

For that, credit the midnight ride of general manager Brian Cashman, who, in one of those tales that will be told for years if this chase ends where the Yankees think it will, left the winter meetings last December to bag Sabathia. Sensing he needed a strong closing argument besides the $161 million cold cash as Sabathia, an Oakland-area native who preferred to sign with a West Coast-based team, Cashman took an overnight trip to sweet talk CC and his wife, Amber.

It's been storybook time ever since and Tuesday's was the exact scenario the Angels feared. Before trying to beat him in Game 4, they tried to beat the Yankees to him last winter. They offered $140 million and Torii Hunter spent plenty of time on the telephone recruiting Sabathia. No dice.

So after he went 19-8 with a 3.37 ERA in 34 starts this season, there they were, chasing him again. Just about as successfully, too.

CC Sabathia has a tiny 1.19 ERA with 20 K's this postseason. (US Presswire)

"He's obviously figured some things out in a big way," Angels manager Mike Scioscia said, contrasting the Sabathia that stifled his team in Games 1 and 4 in this series with the guy they beat twice during the 2009 regular season, hanging him with a 6.08 ERA in those two starts. "That changeup he was throwing for the last couple of times we saw him wasn't nearly as consistent as it is now.

"I thought that was probably the biggest thing we had trouble adjusting to tonight. He threw it in off counts and had great command of it. He was the story in the two games, Game 1 and this game."

He's been the story of the playoffs, period. The Yankees made no secret of their intention to ride Sabathia as far as he could carry them, slotting him for Games 1, 4 and 7 in this ALCS and maybe doing the same thing in the World Series.

So far, he's been the winning pitcher in three of the Yanks' six postseason victories. He's got a tidy 1.19 ERA this postseason with 20 strikeouts in 22 2/3 innings pitched.

How good have Sabathia, A.J. Burnett and Andy Pettitte been? The Yankees are trashing their competition this October despite a wretched .156 batting average with runners in scoring position. And it's not even close.

"His demeanor doesn't change," said Jeter, a guy who knows all about that. "Good games or bad, when he strikes out a guy or gives up a hit, he's got the same demeanor. He's unflappable."

Three consecutive years, now, Sabathia has carried the Cleveland Indians, Milwaukee Brewers and New York Yankees into the postseason.

Until now, however, it hasn't always been balloons and cake. He did not pitch well for the Indians in 2007, to the point where the Indians fell short to Boston in the ALCS in no small part because of him. Sorting through that wreckage, there's no camouflaging his 10.45 ERA in that series.

He also was hit hard by the Phillies in his one NL Division Series start last year, a five-run hammering that produced a 12.27 ERA.

So while odes currently are being written to Alex Rodriguez, the former Mr. October Choker who is blistering his way through this series to the tune of a .375 batting average and three homers in four games, he's not the only one dishing out a little postseason payback.

"I never had any doubt about me being able to perform on this stage and to pitch well late in October," Sabathia said. "But it seems like people did.

"But I feel great. Hopefully, I can keep it going."

In that, he's gotten an assist from the Yankees through careful planning. Where he made four consecutive starts late last season on short (three days) rest for Milwaukee, the Yankees' early clinching this year afforded them the luxury to give their ace extra rest this September.

"We took him into the postseason fresh," Eiland said. "We gave him six days' rest [between starts] for much of September."

Indeed, Sabathia had five days rest between starts on Sept. 7 and Sept. 13, five more between starts on Sept. 13 and Sept. 19, six between starts on Sept. 19 and Sept. 26 and five between starts on Sept. 26 and Oct. 2. By season's end, Sabathia's 230 innings were his lowest total in three seasons.

All that helped explain his energy boost as he worked deeper into Tuesday night's game.

Well, that and one other thing.

"He smells it," Eiland said. "He smells it. He smells victory. All the good ones do, and they turn it up."

Knowing Sabathia's October history, Eiland also made sure to talk with his ace before Game 1 of the Division Series against Minnesota.

"The thing I told him was, when you go out, you're going to be juiced and the crowd is going to be going nuts, and you've got to control that," Eiland said. "And, coupled with his past postseasons, he's learned from that."

That's not all he's learned. As the Yankees take their smiles and good karma into Wednesday's off day, Sabathia remembers something else, too. Just as these Yankees do now, those '07 Indians held a 3-1 lead in the ALCS, too.

And they blew it, allowing Boston to whack them in three straight games.

"That experience two years ago was tough to swallow," Sabathia said. "Being up 3-1, and not being able to close it out ... you just want to keep going and keep playing well.

"We've been playing good all playoffs. We've been having good pitching, playing good defense. We just need to close it out.

"It's that time."